midwife means A person, usually a woman, who is trained to assist women in childbirth, but who is not a physician. It carries an Arena rating of 1465, earned across 3 head-to-head judged battles.
Among words judged in Lexicurio's Arena, midwife ranks #142 of 42,752 for Qualifying, #708 of 17,134 for Most Malleable Words, #996 of 17,143 for Best Fossil-Poetry Words, #1,270 of 17,142 for Most Ingenious Words.
midwife is pronounced /ˈmɪd.waɪf/.
Why “midwife” is a great word
A person trained to assist women during childbirth, from Middle English *midwif*, from *mid* ("with") + *wif* ("woman, wife"), thus literally "with-woman." Unlike *accoucheuse*, with its formal, continental air, or *obstetrician*, a surgeon of the reproductive system, the midwife is a companion in the primal event. She is the warm compress in the small hours, the low voice murmuring through a contraction, the keeper of the ancient, bloody threshold where life emerges—the quiet, ageless witness to the oldest alchemy, where pain becomes a child, and another woman remembers how to breathe.
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).
noun
- A person, usually a woman, who is trained to assist women in childbirth, but who is not a physician.e.g.“A hundred years ago, a midwife would bring the baby into the world - going to a hospital to deliver a baby was either impossible or unheard of.”
- Someone who assists in bringing about some result or project.e.g.“He had not read it, but he said that every detail in it was true. This struck me as a rather cavalier attitude to truth, but hatred is not the midwife of caution or accuracy.” — 2012, Theodore Dalrymple, The Wilder Shores of Marx: Journeys in a Vanishing World:
verb
- To act as a midwife.
- To facilitate the emergence of.e.g.“But the bigger objective was to help Iraqis midwife a democratic model that could inspire reform across the Arab-Muslim world and give the youth there a chance at a better future.” — 2010 April 13, Thomas L. Friedman, “Attention: Baby on Board.”, in The New York Times:
Definitions & examples from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA 3.0).
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