bigam

English

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Alternative forms

bigame, bygame

Etymology

From Latin bigamus (“twice married”): compare French bigame. See bigamy.

Noun

bigam (plural bigams)

(rare, archaic) A bigamist, or one who has married a widow.
- 1502, anonymous author, The Ordinary of Christian Men‎^[1], London: Wynkyn de Worde, page 234:
  If he were irreguler, suspende, excommunycate, bygame, illegittime, or concubinarie open and knowen, & by the consequens suspende at the tyme & houre that he receyved the dygnyte, the cure, or prelacyon he synneth mortally and is contynually in deedly synne...
- 1823, A. Clarke, The Latter Day Luminary‎^[2], volume IV, number X, page 344:
  The Asiatic queens, sultanas, and bigams, scarcely ever appear in public. They abide in the Haram, in the greatest luxury and spelendour...
- 1744, John Lewis, The Life of the Learned and Right Reverend Reynold Pecock, S.T.P., Lord Bishop of St. Asaph and Chichester, London: John Moore, page 286:
  "Some parts of the scripture teach us positive ordinances of Christ, as are the sacraments; and some parts thereof teach us ordinances of some apostle, as the law of bigamy, or St. Paul 's ordaining, that a bigam should not be a deacon or priest, and that a woman vowe not chastity before the sixtieth year of her age."
- 2024, Criticker Films & TV‎^[3], A notre regrettable époux:
  On the death of Alexander, her husband, Hermione, a chatelaine, discovers that he was a bigam on the one hand, and a swindler on the other.

Part or all of this entry has been imported from the 1913 edition of Webster’s Dictionary, which is now free of copyright and hence in the public domain. The imported definitions may be significantly out of date, and any more recent senses may be completely missing.
(See the entry for “bigam”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.)

Latin

Noun

bīgam

accusative singular of bīga

Romanian

Etymology

Borrowed from French bigame.

Noun

bigam m (plural bigami)

bigamist

Declension

	indefinite	definite	indefinite	definite
	singular		plural
nominative-accusative	bigam	bigamul	bigami	bigamii
genitive-dative	bigam	bigamului	bigami	bigamilor
vocative	bigamule		bigamilor