Bride

Bride (A.S. brȳd) alone denotes the newly-married woman; with the addition of the word groom (a corruption of A.S. guma, 'a man,' allied to Lat. homo), the newly-married man (A.S. brȳd-guma). The r in -groom is intrusive, as in part-r-idge, vag-r-ant, co-r-poral for Fr. caporal, cart-r-idge for Fr. cartouche, and hoa-r-se. Bride has cognate forms in the other Teutonic tongues; bridegroom has parallels in Dutch bruide-gom, Danish brud-gom, Ger. bräutigam. Bridal, the marriage-feast, again, is for bridc-ale (the latter being a common name for a feast, seen in leet-ales, scot-ales, church-ales, clerk-ales, bid-ales, and bride-ales). Originally it meant merely the carousal or drinking in honour of the bride, and indeed bride-ale is still in the Cleveland dialect of Yorkshire the name given to the draught presented to the wedding-party on its return from church. See WEDDING.