hymeneal

adj

1. Pertaining to marriage.

   “I consider these more as the privileges of age, than as part of the hymeneal dowry.”

   “It seems to me that girls ought to be early taught to discriminate, between the characteristic of a hymeneal connexion and of a dishonourable one apparently resembling it.”

   “"My dear Copperfield," said Mr. Micawber. "This is luxurious. This is a way of life which reminds me of the period when I was myself in a state of celibacy, and Mrs. Micawber had not yet been solicited to plight her faith at the "Hymeneal" altar."”

   “Mrs. Gereth evidently thought in these days of little but things hymeneal; for she broke out with sudden rapture in the middle of the week: "I know what they'll do: they will marry, but they'll go and live at Waterbath!"”

   “In the fulness of time there was an eruption of the merry-makers to the sidewalk. The uninvited guests enveloped and permeated them, and upon the night air rose joyous cries, congratulations, laughter and unclassified noises born of McGary's oblations to the hymeneal scene.”

2. Pertaining to sexual relations.

   “Although the whole earth, not we alone, is moved by passions hymeneal, and everything terrestrial has come into being by the one common road, yet there is that ridiculous tendency to close the eyes and turn away the head as if there were something unclean in nature itself.”

3. Of or pertaining to the hymen.

   “‘It doesn't seem to qualify as a haemorrhage,’ he said, with his usual cocky certainty. ‘Just heavy hymeneal bleeding, I'd say.’”

noun

1. A hymn, song or poem in honour of a wedding.

   “For her white virgins hymeneals sing, / To sounds of heav'nly harps she dies away, / And melts in visions of eternal day.”