Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- noun The condition of a woman in the process of giving birth.
from The Century Dictionary.
- noun Literally, the bed in which a woman gives birth to a child; hence, the act of bringing forth a child or the state of being in labor; parturition: as, “women in child-bed,” Arbuthnot, Aliments.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- noun The state of a woman bringing forth a child, or being in labor; parturition.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- noun uncountable The final stage of
pregnancy ;confinement - noun countable The
bed in which a baby isborn
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- noun concluding state of pregnancy; from the onset of contractions to the birth of a child
Etymologies
Sorry, no etymologies found.
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Examples
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Charlotte in childbed; it has turned to a royal daughter whose death meets no divine design, only "inscrutable decrees."
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His late wife, "pretty Mrs. Frescheville," had died in childbed on May 22nd, 1653.
Letters from Dorothy Osborne to Sir William Temple (1652-54) 1888
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She died – probably in childbed – in November of next year (1654), and was buried at Petworth with her infant son.
Letters from Dorothy Osborne to Sir William Temple (1652-54) 1888
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One must be able to think back the way to unknown places … and to partings long foreseen, to days of childhood … and to parents … to days on the sea … to nights of travel … and one must have memories of many nights of love, no two alike … and the screams of women in childbed … one must have sat by the dying, one must have sat by the dead in a room with open windows ….
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Semmelweis noticed that at the doctor-staffed clinic, about 10% of the women died of something called childbed fever.
Archive 2010-03-01 Ah Yuan // wingstodust 2010
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Semmelweis noticed that at the doctor-staffed clinic, about 10% of the women died of something called childbed fever.
Spotlighting Y.S. Lee's epic blog tour of awesome Ah Yuan // wingstodust 2010
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Childbirth fever (This is also called childbed fever, postpartum infection, or puerperal infection.)
Chapter 33 1993
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He afterwards says (p. 280) that Galla died in childbed; and intimates, that the affliction of her husband was extreme but short.] 112 Lycopolis is the modern
The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire 1206
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He worries for his sister, now the last member of his immediate family left in France, and is forever urging her to visit, although having just risen from childbed, she cannot.
Exit the Actress Priya Parmar 2011
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In the 1840s, Ignaz Semmelweiss's lonely battle to get the medical establishment to accept that doctors were spreading childbed fever from mother to mother cost him his job and his sanity though his prickly personality didn't help.
Is That Scientific Heretic a Genius—or a Loon? Matt Ridley 2011
bilby commented on the word childbed
A terrible childbed hast thou had, my dear;
No light, no fire: the unfriendly elements
Forgot thee utterly: nor have I time
To give thee hallow'd to thy grave, but straight
Must cast thee, scarcely coffin'd, in the ooze;
- William Shakespeare, 'Pericles, Prince of Tyre'.
July 26, 2009