silver wedding

English

Etymology

A calque of German Silberhochzeit or silberne Hochzeit, first attested 1845.

Noun

silver wedding (plural silver weddings)

1. The silver anniversary of a wedding, the 25th anniversary of a marriage.
   • 1845, Arthur Hugh Clough, Ambarvalia: Poems, London: Chapman and Hall, published 1849, page 28:

     The Silver Wedding! on some pensive ear
     From towers remote as sound the silvery bells,
     To-day from one far unforgotten year
     A silvery faint memorial music swells.

   • 1850, Jemima von Tautphoeus, Initials, volume I, page 121:

     ‘Perhaps you have no golden or silver wedding in England?’
     ‘I confess I never heard of any thing of the kind,’ said Hamilton...

Coordinate terms

• ruby wedding (40th)
• golden wedding (50th)
• diamond wedding (60th/75th)

Translations

25th anniversary of a marriage — see silver anniversary

References

• “silver, n. and adj.”, in OED Online ⁠, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2022.