Gretna Green

English Etymology "Green at the gravelly hill", from en ang greot grit and ang hoh hill. Proper noun Gretna Green en A <<village>> on the border between England and Scotland (in <<carea/Dumfries and Galloway>> just inside <<cc/Scotland>>), famous for easy marriages OS grid ref NY3168. en 1845 Leigh Hunt The Indicator: a Miscellany for the Fields and the Fireside 213 The Clown is a London cockney, with a prodigious eye to his own comfort and muffins,—a Lord Mayor's fool, who loved "everything that was good;" and Columbine is the boarding-school girl, ripe for running away with, and making a dance of it all the way from Chelsea to Gretna Green. Noun 1 Any town with liberal marriage laws, a place where couples elope. en 12 June 1823 Lord Redesdale It was nothing more nor less than to convert all places licensed under the Toleration Act into Gretna Greens, where persons of all persuasions might go and make irregular marriages. Dissenters' marriages British House of Lords 16 1952 Federal Writers Project A town of narrow streets and smoke-begrimed old buildings, Wellsburg thrived as a Gretna Green for many years 485 West Virginia: A Guide to the Mountain State 1603540474 en 1995 The sexual irresponsibility attributed to most gin marriages could not help being linked with the possibility of a sexually transmitted infection that accompanied the couples, untested, to Crown Point, Valparaiso, or other Gretna Greens. Chicago's War on Syphilis, 1937-40 Suzanne Poirier 0252021479 Adjective - 1 carried out quickly and secretively in a jurisdiction that is not the bride or groom's own. of a marriage 1833, R. Longley, private correspondence quoted in Peter Ward, Courtship, Love, and Marriage in Nineteenth-Century English Canada, page 110: There has been a Gretna Green marriage in Brockville. Miss Mary Ann Hall and a Mr. Underwood ran away to Ogdensburg (New York) and got married last week and was back again the night before last. 1836 August, 'Orson', "East Florida—Alligators—the Seminoles, etc.", The Knickerbocker Magazine, page 150: He made a very pleasant morning's sport, especially as it was my first conquest, and entitled me to all the privileges of a Floridian. At this my favorite place of resort, a Gretna-Green affair happened, just before my arrival, and was witnessed by a companion who was often with me en 1861 "Three Months in Labrador" Harper's New Monthly Magazine 22 757 Just beyond the portal is a cluster of islands, one of them, Gull Island, made famous by a Gretna Green affair of tragic end Related terms en elopement en shotgun wedding en Marriage