mésalliance
/mɛˈzalɪəns
/noun
A marriage with a person thought to be unsuitable: the loss of half a million francs only underlined the fact that her son was making a mésalliance...
- All three of the sisters' marriages were considered hopeless mésalliances by the husbands' families at the time.
- Without a pedigree authenticated by fellow nobles, true nobility was unthinkable - a problem that could cause acute embarrassment to the recently ennobled or the progeny of mésalliances.
- It can only be that the union would be a shocking mésalliance, or surely he would simply propose - what fool would turn down the Ashton fortunes, lands, and looks?
Origin
French, from més- 'wrong, misdirected' + alliance (see alliance).