hypergamy
/haɪˈpɚɡəmi/noun
hypergamy is a noun meaning “Act or practice of seeking a spouse of higher socioeconomic status or caste status than oneself” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). It is spelled H-Y-P-E-R-G-A-M-Y, and it appears about once in every 35 million words in written English (wordfreq, 2021 data). The plural of hypergamy is hypergamies.
What does hypergamy mean?
noun
- 1
Act or practice of seeking a spouse of higher socioeconomic status or caste status than oneself.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
How do you pronounce hypergamy?
- US /haɪˈpɚɡəmi/
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Recordings: LL-Q1860_(eng)-Flame,_not_lame-hypergamy.wav, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).
Forms of hypergamy
- hypergamies plural
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
How common is hypergamy?
Hypergamy appears about once in every 35 million words in written English, the 180,281st most frequent word form in the list.
Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
Hypergamy in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese
In the sense hypergamy:
| Language | Words |
|---|---|
| French | hypergamie |
| German | Hypergamie, Hinaufheiraten |
| Portuguese | hipergamia |
| Spanish | hipergamia |
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Translations are Wiktionary's, by sense; a linked word has its own PlainSpell page.
Where does hypergamy come from?
From hyper- + -gamy.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).