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midwife

Pronunciation: /ˈmɪdwʌɪf/

Translate midwife | into French | into German | into Italian | into Spanish
Definition of midwife

noun (plural midwives /-wʌɪvz/)

  • a nurse (typically a woman) who is trained to assist women in childbirth.
  • a person who helps to create or develop something:he survived to be one of the midwives of the Reformation

verb

[with object]
  • assist (a woman) during childbirth: these women midwifed her
  • help to bring about:Gruber midwifed the deal

Derivatives

midwifery

Pronunciation: /-ˈwɪf(ə)ri/

noun

Origin:

Middle English: probably from the obsolete preposition mid 'with' + wife (in the archaic sense 'woman'), expressing the sense 'a woman who is with (the mother')

midwife in other Oxford dictionaries

Definition of midwife in the US English dictionary