Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun The condition of a woman in the process of giving birth.
  • adjective Of or intended for use during childbirth.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun Confinement in childbed.
  • Pertaining to childbirth; obstetrical: as, a lying-in hospital.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun The state attending, and consequent to, childbirth; confinement.
  • noun The act of bearing a child.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun The final stages of pregnancy; accouchement.
  • adjective of, or relating to childbirth

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

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Examples

  • I did not see what good an unmarried gentlewoman would be at a lying-in, but I did not argue.

    Secrets of the Tudor Court Kate Emerson 2010

  • I did not see what good an unmarried gentlewoman would be at a lying-in, but I did not argue.

    Secrets of the Tudor Court Kate Emerson 2010

  • I did not see what good an unmarried gentlewoman would be at a lying-in, but I did not argue.

    Secrets of the Tudor Court Kate Emerson 2010

  • The visitor, fascinated by the man's passion and occasional lucidity, discovers that he was a doctor at the lying-in wards of the General Hospital: Professor Ignaz Semmelweiss, who ran afoul of his colleagues by insisting that the very high incidence of fatal childbed fever could be checked if the doctors washed their hands before examining the patients.

    The Birth of Love by Joanna Kavenna Ursula K Le Guin 2010

  • Such derangement may begin any time after conception, and may end after delivery or continue after birth, wrote physician George Man Burrows in 1828; some women “are insane on every pregnancy or lying-in, others only occasionally.”

    Origins Annie Murphy Paul 2010

  • I did not see what good an unmarried gentlewoman would be at a lying-in, but I did not argue.

    Secrets of the Tudor Court Kate Emerson 2010

  • When they were finished, Epstein spoke with Will and asked him about the arrangements that had been made for Carolines lying-in.

    The Lovers John Connolly 2009

  • But thou, - why thus unwashed and clad in foul attire, now that the days of thy lying-in are accomplished?

    Electra 2008

  • “A bonny errand it is,” said old Lucky Simson, “to carry away a lying-in woman as a gled [Footnote: Or Kite.] would do a clocking-hen.”

    The Surgeon's Daughter 2008

  • But thou, - why thus unwashed and clad in foul attire, now that the days of thy lying-in are accomplished?

    Electra 2008

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