Definition of "nuptial" []

• Of or relating to marriage or the wedding ceremony. (adjective)
• Of, relating to, or occurring during the mating season: the nuptial plumage of male birds. (adjective)
• A wedding ceremony. Often used in the plural. (noun)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

• "He is addressed as a king possessed of all essential graces, as a conqueror exalted on the throne of a righteous and eternal government, and as a bridegroom arrayed in nuptial splendor."
• "The shrubs and flowers were in pairs; and I was informed that such little gardens appear about the houses where there are and have been nuptials, and hence they are called nuptial gardens."
• "By the fourth generation, Kammerer reported, male toads even had black "nuptial" pads, a trait water-mating toads have (to grasp a female) but midwife toads do not."