childbed

Etymology

It is formed from English child + bed,^{[2][3][4][5][6]} first written child-bed.^[7][8] The OED compares Old High German kindbetti (modern German Kindbett), Middle Dutch kindsbedde (modern Dutch kindsbed) and Middle Low German kinderbedde.^[2]

Earliest recorded meaning

The state of a woman in labour: before 1200, in the Trinity Homilies, which say that the Virgin Mary went through childbedde.^[2][7] Etymonline dates it to about 1200.^[3]

Semantic evolution

In Middle English the word was used mostly in phrases such as lien in childbed, to lie in, be confined to bed to give birth or after the birth.^[7] The Promptorium Parvulorum of 1440 glossed it with the Latin words for a woman in childbirth.^[7] Johnson (1755) defined it as the state of a woman bringing forth a child, quoting Bacon on a queen who died in childbed.^[9] From 1568 it also meant the bed in which a child is born, often figuratively,^[2][10] a sense Etymonline dates to the 1590s.^[3] A count use, an instance of giving birth, is recorded from 1582 and is now rare,^[2] and a rare sense "the womb", chiefly regional in early use, from 1863.^[2] The 1989 edition of the OED had dated that sense to 1535, calling it obsolete except in dialect.^[11]

Timeline

• before 1200 – the state of a woman in labour; childbirth.^[2][7]
• 1494 – used attributively.^[10]
• 1568 – the bed in which a child is born, also figurative.^[2]
• 1582 – an instance of giving birth, chiefly in the plural.^[2]
• 1863 – the womb (rare).^[2]

Meanings

Noun

1. The condition of a woman giving birth; childbirth or confinement: She died in childbed with her third baby.^[12][4][2]
2. Used before another noun, of things connected with giving birth, as in childbed fever.^[12][10]
3. The bed in which a child is born; also figuratively, a place where something comes into being.^[2][1]

Word family

• childbed fever

Related words

• child
• bed

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
4. ^ a b Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
5. ^ Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
6. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
7. ^ a b c d e Kurath, Hans; Kuhn, Sherman M.; Lewis, Robert E., eds. (1952–2001), Middle English Dictionary, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press; online edition ed. Frances McSparran et al. (2000–2018)
8. ^ Stratmann, Francis Henry (1891), A Middle-English Dictionary, revised by Henry Bradley, Oxford: Clarendon Press
9. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
10. ^ a b c Kay, Christian; Roberts, Jane; Samuels, Michael; Wotherspoon, Irené, eds. (2009), Historical Thesaurus of the Oxford English Dictionary, Oxford: Oxford University Press; online edition (2024)
11. ^ Simpson, J. A.; Weiner, E. S. C., eds. (1989), The Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
12. ^ a b Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins