conjoined

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English[edit]

Daisy and Violet Hilton, conjoined twins

Adjective[edit]

conjoined (not comparable)

  1. Joined together physically, of persons (conjoined twins), or things.
    • 1580s, Ovid, Elegia VI, Book I, translated by Christopher Marlowe, in Christopher Marlowe: The Complete Poems and Translations, Stephen Orgel (ed.), Penguin, 1971, p. 110,
      And farewell cruel posts, rough threshold's block, / And doors conjoined with an hard iron lock!
    • 1888–1891, Herman Melville, “[Billy Budd, Foretopman.] Chapter [HTTP://GUTENBERG.NET.AU/EBOOKS06/0608511H.HTML 11].”, in Billy Budd and Other Stories, London: John Lehmann, published 1951, →OCLC:
      Now envy and antipathy, passions irreconcilable in reason, nevertheless in fact may spring conjoined like Chang and Eng in one birth.
    • 1982, Saul Bellow, The Dean's December, New York: Pocket Books, page 184:
      Blood vessels are fused to increase circulation and these conjoined or grafted veins and arteries make great painful lumps which have to be soaked daily.
    • 2009, Alex Metcalfe, chapter 10, in The Muslims of Medieval Italy, Edinburgh University Press, page 196:
      These 'signatures' (in Arabic ‘alāmāt; singular, ‘alāma) typically consisted of a phrase of up to half a dozen conjoined words written as a monogram in which the reed pen usually maintained contact with the parchment throughout.
  2. Joined or bound together; united (in a relationship)
    • 1598–1599 (first performance), William Shakespeare, “Much Adoe about Nothing”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies [] (First Folio), London: [] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act IV, (please specify the scene number in lowercase Roman numerals)]:
      If either of you know any inward impediment, why you should not be conjoined, I charge you, on your souls, to utter it.
    • 1935, T.S. Eliot, Murder in the Cathedral, New York: Harcourt, Brace & Co., Part II, p. 83:
      O my lord / The glory of whose new state is hidden from us, / Pray for us of your charity; now in the sight of God / Conjoined with all the saints and martyrs gone before you, / Remember us.
    • 1957 June 3, “E Pluribus Nigeria”, in Time:
      But as representatives of a loosely conjoined nation split in a hundred ways by personal, tribal, religious and economic rivalries and jealousies, no two of them went to the conference agreed on what independence should mean.
  3. Combined.
    • 1823, Charles Lamb, "A Quakers' Meeting" in Essays of Elia, New York: The Century Co., 1902, p. 112, [1]
      Their garb and stillness conjoined, present a uniformity, tranquil and herd-like—as in the pasture—"forty feeding like one."
    • 1871, Walt Whitman, Democratic Vistas[2], Washington, D.C., page 45:
      I have seen another woman who, from taste and necessity conjoined, has gone into practical affairs, carries on a mechanical business, partly works at it herself, []

Usage notes[edit]

Conjoint is often used, but conjoined is the preferred usage.

Derived terms[edit]

Translations[edit]

Verb[edit]

conjoined

  1. simple past and past participle of conjoin