honeymoon

Reading level: hard

Estimated CEFR level: C1 — Advanced

Estimated from word frequency; not an official CEFR classification.

Definition

  1. noun a holiday taken by a newly married couple
  2. noun the early (usually calm and harmonious) period of a relationship; business or political
  3. verb spend a holiday after one's marriage

Etymology

From earlier hony moone, originally denoting the period of time following a wedding, equivalent to honey + moon. The original reference was to affection waning like the moon, but later the sense became "the first month, or moon after marriage", which tends to be the sweetest. Compare Middle Low German suckermânt (“honeymoon”, literally “sugar-month”), German Low German Hönnigweken (“honeymoon”, literally “honey-weeks”). The German Honigmond (literally “honey-moon”) is a calque of French lune de miel, itself a calque of the English term.

In classic literature

A single word — an entire dictionary opens.

Type a word, a sentence, a book title, or a link to an English article. WordNet and the Classics answer.

Try

A library of classics · a vault of words · instant etymology & meaning

Continue reading