wed

Etymology

From Middle English wedden, weddien, from Old English weddian (“to pledge; wed”), from Proto-West Germanic *waddjōn, from Proto-Germanic *wadjōną (“to pledge”), from *wadją (“pledge”), ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *wedʰ- (“to pledge”). Cognate with Scots wed, wod, wad (“to wed”), Saterland Frisian wädje (“to bet, wager”), West Frisian wedzje (“to bet, wager”), Low German and Dutch wedden (“to bet”), German wetten (“to bet”), Danish vædde (“to bet”), Swedish vädja (“to appeal”), Icelandic veðja (“to bet”); more distantly, to Sanskrit वधू (vadhū́, “bride”). Related also to gage, engage, and wage.

verb

1. (transitive) To perform the marriage ceremony for; to join in matrimony.
   The priest wed the couple.
2. (transitive) To take as one's spouse.
   She wed her first love.
   In 1989, he wed Playmate Kimberley Conrad, a marriage that ended in 2010. In 2013, he married his younger girlfriend, Crystal Harris, with whom he was still wed at the time of his death. September 27 2017, David Browne, “Hugh Hefner, 'Playboy' Founder, Dead at 91”, in Rolling Stone
3. (intransitive) To take a spouse.
4. (reciprocal) To take each other as a spouse.
   They will wed in the summer.
5. (figurative, transitive) To join or commit to, more or less permanently, as if in marriage.
   I'm not wedded to this proposal; suggest an alternative.
   It will be a tragedy if further enterprises of this kind—for example, the one proposed between South Wales, Bristol and the South Coast via Salisbury—are now deferred until they, too, are realised too late to make an impact on a public that is too firmly wedded to the roads to be wooed back to the trains. 1962 April, “Death from Natural Causes?”, in Modern Railways, page 218
   […] the PPS paper proposed a political doctrine that wedded modernization theory to U.S. support for national security states […] 2008, Bradley Simpson, Economists with Guns, page 72
6. (figurative, intransitive) To take to oneself and support; to espouse.
7. (Northern England, Scotland) To wager, stake, bet, place a bet, make a wager.
   I'd wed my head on that.