with child

English

Etymology

Replaced earlier mid child. Compare Danish med barn.

Prepositional phrase

with child

  1. (euphemistic) Pregnant.
    • 1623, William Shakespeare, The Winter's Tale, act 3, scene 2:
      I would there were no age between sixteen and three-and-twenty, or that youth would sleep out the rest; for there is nothing in the between but getting wenches with child, wronging the ancientry, stealing, fighting.
    • 1722, Daniel Defoe, Moll Flanders, chapter 20:
      Nothing was more frightful to me than his caresses, and the apprehensions of being with child again by him was ready to throw me into fits.
    • 1999, Rebecca Hourwich Reyher, Zulu Woman:
      I should have had two children, but I find myself with only one. Yet he spends his time with other women who are already with child.

Translations

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