midwife
Meanings
noun
- A person, usually a woman, who is trained to assist women in childbirth, but who is not a physician.
- Someone who assists in bringing about some result or project.
verb
- To act as a midwife.
- To facilitate the emergence of.
Pronunciation
Word forms
Etymology
From Middle English midwif, corresponding to mid (“with”) + wif (“woman, wife, female”). It appears not to be entirely clear whether the original understanding was “with-woman” in the sense of “attending/assisting woman”, or “they who are with the woman” (namely the mother).
Synonyms
Related words
Derived words
Translations
This entry uses open data from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA/GFDL). Word forms are used for search and are not indexed as separate pages.