out of wedlock

Idioms  

1. Of parents not legally married, as in Over the centuries many royal children were born out of wedlock. The noun wedlock, for the state of being married, is rarely heard today except in this phrase, first recorded in 1675; its converse, in wedlock, dates from the 1300s and is even more rarely used.

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Example Sentences

See Examples For:

out of wedlock

“If we see that 70% of households are raising children out of wedlock, that means 30% are not,” Mr. Woodson once told me.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Feb. 3, 2026

Maternity homes were popular before Roe as a place where usually teen mothers went to secretly have babies that were conceived out of wedlock.

From Slate ● Jun. 24, 2025

But he was instead mired in scandal, including mounting debts and lawsuits and backlash from two children born out of wedlock.

From Los Angeles Times ● Nov. 5, 2024

Catherine gave birth in an orphanage in Dublin and, because of attitudes at the time about children born out of wedlock, she was coerced into giving Gladys up for adoption.

From BBC ● Sep. 20, 2024

Mom tells me that Abuela Zaida had all her sons out of wedlock in Costa Rica then convinced my grandfather he should marry her and move to Cuba.

From "Dreaming in Cuban" by Cristina García