Montague

English

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /ˈmɒntəɡjuː/
• Rhymes: -ɒntəɡjuː

Proper noun

Montague (countable and uncountable, plural Montagues)

1. A surname from Old French, variant of Montagu.
2. A male given name.
3. (figuratively) By analogy with the Shakespearean play, a member or citizen of the family, party, or country of the husband in a Romeo and Juliet couple and/or of a group that is feuding with another, similar group identified as Capulet.
   • 1913, Annabella Bruce Marchand, Dirk, a South African, page 198:

     It goes without saying that she knew nothing whatever of the bad relations subsisting between her father and her sweetheart. She did not know her Romeo was a Montague still less that to him she was a Capulet.

   • 1960, Helen Caldwell, The Braziliam Othello of Machado de Assis: A study of Dom Casmurro, page 124:

     For seven years she and her father, and her father-in-law, remained estranged, till old Santa-Pia Capulet lay on his death bed, still adamant in his political convictions, recalcitrant against the orders of the state (on emancipation), and unrelenting toward his daughter, the dead Romeo, and old Montague; and so he died, with only a vague gesture of forgiveness toward Fidelia, though Campos (Prince Escalus) had been trying all the while to bring about a reconciliation.

   • 1963, Forrest C. Pogue, George C. Marshall: Education of a general, 1880-1939, page 8:

     Still, despite Marshall's impression of a kind of Montague-Capulet feud, George Catlett did succeed in marrying Laura Emily, the daughter of Dr. Jonathan Bradford, and his sister, Margaret, married Laura's brother, Thomas.

   • 2003, Grant Allen, Clarissa Suranyi, The Type-Writer Girl, page 104:

     Romeo's mother was precisely what I had painted her — a Lady Montague of the severest, with coffee-coloured point-lace, a Cornelia one shade too stout for the mother of the Gracchi.

   • 2004, Scott Casper, Cardinal Sin: Tales of Alaska, War, and More, page 161:

     She playfully called herself a tragedienne, much like Juliet Capulet, and she thought of Timmy as her Romeo Montague.

   • 2020, Michael Strevens, The Knowledge Machine:

     That said, Capulet's skepticism has a sound rationale. She needs only one kind of thing, caloric fluid, to explain the movement and behavior of heat. Montague has posited two kinds of things, heat itself and heat radiation, each popping up to do the job it is good for and then conveniently metamorphosing into the other when that's what's needed instead.

4. A city in Siskiyou County, California.
5. A town in Massachusetts.
6. A city in Michigan.
7. A town in New York.
8. A township in Ontario.
9. A community in Prince Edward Island.
10. An unincorporated census-designated place, the county seat of Montague County, Texas.

Derived terms

• Montague County
• Shepton Montague

See also

• Capulet