concubinage

American  

[kon-kyoo-buh-nij, kong-] / kɒnˈkju bə nɪdʒ, kɒŋ- /

noun

1. cohabitation of a man and woman without legal or formal marriage.

2. the state or practice of being a concubine.

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concubinage British  

/ kɒnˈkjuːbɪnɪdʒ /

noun

1. cohabitation without legal marriage

2. the state of living as a concubine

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Etymology

Origin of concubinage

Middle English word dating back to 1350–1400; see origin at concubine, -age

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Example Sentences

See Examples For:

concubinage

They led the movements for famine relief and Western agricultural methods, led in the attacks on opium, foot-binding, daughter slaughter, concubinage.

From Time Magazine Archive

Terming her concubinage "marriage" she presumptuously sued for a "divorce."

From Time Magazine Archive

Pechiney has been in concubinage with Ugine Kuhlmann for years.

From Time Magazine Archive

In 1958 she rammed through the Assembly her controversial Family Bill, which made adultery a prison offense and outlawed polygamy, concubinage, and—except by special presidential dispensation—divorce.*

From Time Magazine Archive

Those who have no liking for the friars, censure them as egoists and buffoons; as living in concubinage; as gamblers and usurers; as arrogant, and ambitious for power.

From The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 — Volume 28 of 55 1637-38 Explorations by Early Navigators, Descriptions of the Islands and Their Peoples, Their History and Records of the Catholic Missions, as Related in Contemporaneous Books and Manuscripts, Showing the Political, Economic, Commercial and Religious Conditions of Those Islands from Their Earliest Relations with European Nations to the Close of the Nineteenth Century by Emma Helen Blair

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