splice v.
1. to marry; thus spliced, married, splicing, marriage.
![]() | Peregrine Pickle (1964) 33: Trunnion! Trunnion! turn out and be spliced, or lie still and be damned. | |
![]() | Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue ms. additions n.p.: Spliced. Married. Sea Term, an allusion to joining two Ropes-Ends by Splicing. | |
![]() | Collection of Songs II 162: To a kind heart for ever / I’ve spliced myself. | ‘Tack and Tack’ in|
![]() | Pettyfogger Dramatized II v: In God’s name, let’s have ’em spliced. | |
![]() | Post Captain (1813) 27: It was a great sacrifice in so young a girl, to get spliced to so old a man. | |
![]() | Lex. Balatronicum [as cit. 1796]. | |
![]() | Bucktails (1847) III ii: Divine lady [...] shall we be spliced? | |
![]() | Black-Ey’d Susan II iii: peter: Why they are spliced together for life. cross.: Married! why I never knew of this? peter: [...] They were spliced before we went upon the last station. | |
![]() | ‘Cat’s-Meat Nell’ in Cockchafer 4: Says I, ‘Nell, I’m in love, my dear, / And wish to know if vether / We to St. Giles’s church shall steer, / And there be spliced together.’. | |
![]() | ‘He Was Such A Queer Old Man’ Dublin Comic Songster 204: She vow’d that him she’d only love, / So got spliced to the queer old man. | |
![]() | Sydney Herald 26 Oct. 2/4: Mr Rennie gave an immense number of examples of similar slang [...] sticks, for ‘household furniture;’ seedy, for ‘poor;’ spliced, for ‘married’. | |
![]() | Memoirs of a Griffin I 123: They have a ball [...] to shew off the girls, and give them an opportunity of getting spliced. | |
![]() | Sir Rupert, the Fearless I v: Now then, you who’ve spliced the main brace, / Pe’haps will splice us two. | |
![]() | Moby Dick (1907) 22: Sal and me slept in that ere bed the night we were spliced. | |
![]() | Delhi Sketch Bk 1 Dec. n.p.: [cartoon caption] Capital fun to get spliced. | |
![]() | Three Clerks (1869) 379: She’s just gone and got herself spliced to Peppermint this morning. | |
![]() | Curry & Rice (3 edn) n.p.: [T]he ceremony of splicing is to be performed at dusk. | |
![]() | Ticket-Of-Leave Man Act III: A fellow coming to office the morning he’s going to be spliced [...] by Jove, it beats the Old Bailey by lengths. | |
![]() | Palace & Hovel 65: We were spliced, Judy and I — she wos an Irish gal and a good worker. | |
![]() | Hamilton Spectator (Vic.) 7 Jan. 2/1: [W]hen they get marredi, they are ‘noosed,’ ‘coupled,’ ‘spliced,’ ‘paired’ and ‘squelched’. | |
![]() | Slaver’s Adventures 151: Now what’s to prevent me from splicing her, and making her happy through life. | |
![]() | Lays of Ind (1905) 121: He'd already been doubly spliced, / But he wished for Number Three. | |
![]() | 🎵 Perhaps some day I may be wed [...] Although there’s many spliced tis said / Who fate are now bemoaning. | ‘Polly The Slavey’|
![]() | Nat. Police Gaz. (NY) 1 Feb. 3/4: [headline] A Dadeville, Ala., Splicing. | |
![]() | Truth (Sydney) 2 June 1/4: The priests upon whom was the onus of severally splicing them proceeded to read with embarassing distinctness the causes whereforte matrimony was ordained. | |
![]() | Slum Silhouettes 36: That’s nice carryin’s on for a gal wots goin’ to be spliced the day arter to-morrer. | |
![]() | Regiment 14 May 105/1: Jacques got this advice— / To seek no more above his rank the girl he wished to splice. | |
![]() | World of Graft 58: I likes ye both, but I’ll splice with the one that stops boozin’ the first. | |
![]() | Sun. Times (Perth) 17 Jan. 4/6: Poor Battenburg soon found that princess-splicing wasn’t what it was cracked up to be. | |
![]() | 🎵 Jest seventeen of us, got wed for bett’r or wuss / And we had none of us been never spliced before. | [perf. Marie Lloyd] The Coster’s Wedding|
![]() | Sporting Times 21 Jan. 1/4: He’s engaged to be spliced. | ‘As Good As New’,|
![]() | Enemy to Society 296: I’ve heard Big Steve intended the young ones to be spliced up when they came of age. | |
![]() | Aussie (France) 7 Sept. 7/2: Don’t youse blokes reckon a cove’s dilly to splice one of them mademoiselles when there’s whips of Aussie tarts like these? | |
![]() | Long Trick 24: ‘Lor’, yes, and you got spliced too’. | |
![]() | Boy in Bush 296: Fancy that nipper wantin’ to be spliced. | |
![]() | Scarlet Pansy 140: I got a regular girl [...] Goin’ to get spliced nex’ week. | |
![]() | South Riding (1988) 375: Mrs. B. and I are going to splice up, my girl. | |
![]() | Brighton Rock (1943) 120: We shall see our young friend spliced yet. | |
![]() | Courtship of Uncle Henry 40: When I was courtin’ my wife she said she was twenty. The day we got spliced she said she was thirty. | |
![]() | Big Smoke 150: Got spliced just after the war, didn’t they? | |
![]() | Holy Smoke 91: Is that why you never got spliced? | |
![]() | Queens’ Vernacular 157: Two men who decide to make a go of it in prison want to be [...] spliced. | |
![]() | Up the Cross 95: He also got spliced and finished up siring six anklebiters. | (con. 1959)|
![]() | Auf Wiedersehen Pet Two 292: I can’t think of anything more romantic than getting spliced on the blue sparkling Mediterranean. | |
![]() | Daughters of Cain (1995) 280: Like I told you, I’m gettin’ spliced – got to be a respectable girl now. | |
![]() | Observer 30 Apr. 32: They do not seem to share the reluctance that so many heterosexual men and women feel nowadays towards the idea of getting spliced. | |
![]() | Empty Wigs (t/s) 168: [B]oth Charles Darwin and Thomas Malthus had got spliced to ladies with trustworthy genes. |
2. to have sexual intercourse.
![]() | Bell’s Life in Sydney 20 Nov. 3/2: That’s a nice young gal [i.e. a prostitute], I reckon; I calculate I’ll splice her cool; get change for these coins. | |
![]() | Illus. Police News 18 Jan. 12/1: ‘And the gal?’ ‘Well, I’ll splice her, as I did her sister’. | Wild Tribes of London in
3. to perform the marriage ceremony.
![]() | 🌐 Then we’ll lead the happy couple to the altar, and after Brother King has done a scientific job of splicin’, we’ll give them their combination Christmas and weddin’ presents. | ‘To Make a Hoosier Holiday’