bridesmaid

plural bridesmaids · alternative archaic bridemaid · alternative bride's maid

1. A woman who attends a bride during her wedding ceremony, as part of the main wedding party.

   I'd love to be your bridesmaid at the wedding.

   1 more example

   I was promised sex. Everybody said it. You'll be a bridesmaid, you'll get sex, you'll be fighting 'em off. But not so much as a tongue in sight.

   1994, Richard Curtis, Four Weddings and a Funeral, spoken by Lydia (Sophie Thompson)

2. social dynamicsentertainmentA person or team that perennially finishes well, but never first.

   He had taken her for a dogsbody, a beta fish, a bridesmaid, a ride-along; he had looked right past her, as likely many people did.

   2023, Eleanor Catton, Birnam Wood, page 319

present singular third person bridesmaids · participle present bridesmaiding · participle past bridesmaided · past bridesmaided · alternative archaic bridemaid · alternative bride's maid

1. To act as a bridesmaid for; to attend a bride during her wedding ceremony.

   Still they bridesmaided for her.

   2010, Mark Townsend, Jesus Outside the Box: Twelve Spiritual Tales of the Unexpected, page 308

   4 more examples

   "No, Trichy; I won't be Augusta's bridesmaid; I'll bide my time for bridesmaiding."

   1858, Anthony Trollope, Doctor Thorne, volume 1, page 83

   And what's this? that isn't Herbie Frost with you in the canoe ; why he was best man when I bridesmaided Corinne.

   1915, George Jean Nathan, Henry Louis Mencken, The smart set: a magazine of cleverness, volume 45, page 204

   "It's in my Data-fax, right here! December Bride: and I'm supposed to bridesmaid!"

   1989, Kevin Killian, Shy, page 233

   After ten years of friendship and just six months of lackluster bridesmaiding, the women did not even get an invitation to the wedding.

   2007, Siri Agrell, Bad Bridesmaid: True Tales of Bachelorette Brawls and Taffeta Tantrums, page 150