civil marriage

1. 1.

   a marriage performed by a government official rather than by a clergyman

   Broadermarriage

Questions about civil marriage

What does civil marriage mean?

civil marriage means "a marriage performed by a government official rather than by a clergyman".

Is civil marriage a common word?

civil marriage is banded "Rare" — specialist or archaic — most readers will not have met it. The band comes from how often the word appears in a large corpus of everyday English, not from an editor's impression.