A fiancée is a lady who has agreed to marry. Fiancee is a mid-nineteenth-century French word that meaning "a lady to whom one is engaged" and is related to the noun fiance, which means "a promise." To put it another way, a bride-to-be is pledged to a groom-to-be, and vice versa. The words are used interchangeably today, although fiancée sounds a bit old-fashioned. There are several different ways to refer to a woman who has agreed to marry. If she is not yet married then she is said to be engaged to be married or betrothed. A betrothed girl is one who has been invited to be married. In olden days, when there was no wedding ceremony, this also meant that the two people were married. However, today's weddings tend to be more formal and involve ceremonies with religious elements where witnesses sign papers etc. So, in modern-day terms, being engaged to be married means that you are about to be married, but it is not yet official because there is still time for someone else to step in and save the day! Being married can also mean that you have a husband or wife. In fact, a husband and wife are two names for one person. When you marry someone, you are saying that you want them to be your husband or wife. It is not necessary to use these terms now, but they are useful if you want to describe the relationship between two people.