The announcement of a forthcoming marriage (legally required for a church wedding in England and Wales and read on the three Sundays preceding the marriage).
Synonym:banns of marriage
1766, George Colman, David Garrick, The Clandestine Marriage, a Comedy.[…], London: […] T. Becket and P. A. De Hondt,[…]; R[oberts] Baldwin,[…]; R. Davis,[…]; and T[homas] Davies,[…], →OCLC, ActII, sceneii, page 32: