miscarry

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English miscarien,^[2][3][4] formed from Middle English mis- + carien (“to carry”).^[3][5][6][7] The OED compares Anglo-Norman mescarier (“to come to harm”), recorded in Anglo-Norman from 1267,^[5][8] and Old French meskarier (“to go astray”);^[5] Hoad, Weekley and the Shorter Oxford derive the English verb from this French word.^[9][10][11] Weekley notes that the simple verb carry is intransitive only in carry on.^[10]

Earliest recorded meaning

To go astray: about 1300.^[6][7] The OED's first quotation, for coming to harm or perishing, is from Chaucer's Canterbury Tales (about 1387–95),^[5] and Chaucer used the verb twice.^[12]

Semantic evolution

In Middle English the verb meant to come to grief: of people, to be harmed, killed or to go morally astray, and of things, to be damaged or destroyed; wine that miscarried went bad.^[2][6] From the "go wrong" sense came the use for plans that fail, from 1589,^[5][13] and for letters that fail to reach their destination, from 1592.^[5] The sense of losing a pregnancy is first recorded in 1527, of inducing it in a woman,^[5][7][6] then from 1560 of the woman herself;^[5][13] Johnson (1755) gave "to fail" first and "to have an abortion" second.^[14] Shakespeare used it of crops that fail (1598)^[5] and of a soldier or ships lost at sea, the sense of perishing that died out in the 18th century.^[14][3][5] The noun miscarriage meant an error or failure before it meant a lost pregnancy, which Barnhart dates to 1662.^[7][9]

Timeline

• c. 1300 – to go astray.^[6][7]
• c. 1387 – to come to harm, perish; of things, to be lost (obsolete by 1749).^[5][13]
• c. 1390 – to go wrong, misbehave (now rare).^[5][11]
• before 1450 – to mislead or seduce (obsolete by 1700).^[5][11]
• 1527 – to cause a woman to lose a pregnancy.^[5][7] Etymonline dates the sense to the 1520s.^[6]
• 1560 – of a pregnant woman, to have a miscarriage.^[5][13]
• 1589 – of a plan, to go wrong, fail.^[5][13]
• 1592 – of a letter, to fail to reach its destination.^[5][13]
• 1598 – of plants or land, to be unproductive.^[5]
• 1600 – of a fetus, to be born too early to survive.^[5][13]
• 1602 – of a person, to fail in one's purpose.^[5][13]

Meanings

Verb

1. To lose a fetus before it can survive; to have a miscarriage: She miscarried in the third month.^[15][3][5]
2. Of a fetus, to be born too early to survive.^[5][11]
3. Of a plan or undertaking, to go wrong; to fail: The whole scheme miscarried.^[15][5][14]
4. (chiefly British) Of mail or goods, to fail to reach the intended destination.^[15][5]
5. (rare) To go wrong or astray; to misbehave.^[5][11]
6. (obsolete, 1387–1749) To come to harm, perish or be lost.^{[5][11][3][14]}
7. (obsolete, 1450–1700) To lead astray; to mislead.^[5][11]

Word family

• miscarriage

Related words

• carry
• carriage
• abortion

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b 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)
3. ^ a b c d e Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
4. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z 27 Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
6. ^ a b c d e f Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
7. ^ a b c d e f Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
8. ^ Anglo-Norman Dictionary (AND2), Aberystwyth University, anglo-norman.net (2nd ed., 2005–)
9. ^ a b Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
10. ^ a b Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
11. ^ a b c d e f g Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
12. ^ Benson, Larry D., Glossarial Concordance to Middle English (Chaucer, Gower), Johns Hopkins University, github.com/jhu-digital-manuscripts/gcme
13. ^ a b c d e f g h Kay, Christian; Roberts, Jane; Samuels, Michael; Wotherspoon, Irené, eds. (2009), Historical Thesaurus of the Oxford English Dictionary, Oxford: Oxford University Press; online edition (2024)
14. ^ a b c d Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
15. ^ a b c Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins