Meanings
- uncountableA relationship where an unmarried couple shares a bed; cohabitation.
He wants you an' me to fall dead in love, an' be j'ined in bedlock.
1882, John Alonzo Clark, A Young Disciple, page 3622 more examples
Not a single pleasure is risk-free; Who in his own wife's lap now lays a confident head? Neither in wedlock now nor in bedlock can we be.
2005, David Luke, transl., Johann Wolfgang von Goethe – Selected Poetry, Penguin Classics, page 30If Rose is having a tennis party it may make more sense to include Joe's steady tennis partner, Sue (with whom he has never had sex), than either his wife (from whom he has been separated for four months) or Dizzy (a current partner in bedlock whose most outstanding qualities are neither athletic nor intellectual).
2009, Nicholas Johnson, What Do You Mean and how Do You Know?
Origin
Rhymes & wordplay
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Cite this entry
bedlock. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 2, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/bedlock
“bedlock.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/bedlock. Accessed November 2, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “bedlock,” accessed November 2, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/bedlock.
Source: bedlock on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.