the.com/alimony
The price of loving someone enough to marry them, billed monthly.
means Court-ordered payments one ex-spouse makes to support the other after divorce.
from From Latin alimonia, meaning 'nourishment' or 'sustenance,' itself rooted in alere, 'to nourish or feed' — the same root that gives us 'alimentary.' English adopted it in the 1600s originally for the maintenance a husband owed a wife during a marital dispute, long before the word settled into its modern, post-divorce sense.
- origin
- from latin alimonia meaning nourishment
- duration
- can last longer than the marriage did
- modern trend
- gender neutral now, both spouses can owe it
- tax shift
- since 2019 payer cannot deduct it federally