CHILDBED

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

 Dictionary entry overview: What does childbed mean? 

• CHILDBED (noun)
  The noun CHILDBED has 1 sense:

1. concluding state of pregnancy; from the onset of contractions to the birth of a child

  Familiarity information: CHILDBED used as a noun is very rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• CHILDBED (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Concluding state of pregnancy; from the onset of contractions to the birth of a child

Classified under:

Nouns denoting stable states of affairs

Synonyms:

childbed; confinement; labor; labour; lying-in; parturiency; travail

Context example:

she was in labor for six hours

Hypernyms ("childbed" is a kind of...):

birth; birthing; giving birth; parturition (the process of giving birth)

Meronyms (parts of "childbed"):

uterine contraction (a rhythmic tightening in labor of the upper uterine musculature that contracts the size of the uterus and pushes the fetus toward the birth canal)

effacement (shortening of the uterine cervix and thinning of its walls as it is dilated during labor)

asynclitism; obliquity (the presentation during labor of the head of the fetus at an abnormal angle)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "childbed"):

premature labor; premature labour (labor beginning prior to the 37th week of gestation)

Holonyms ("childbed" is a part of...):

gestation; maternity; pregnancy (the state of being pregnant; the period from conception to birth when a woman carries a developing fetus in her uterus)

 Context examples 

The wife probably died in childbed.

(The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)