childbedn.
/ˈtʃʌɪl(d)bɛd/, U.S. /ˈtʃaɪl(d)ˌbɛd/ 1.
a. The state of a woman in labour; childbirth.
ΘΚΠ
the world > life > source or principle of life > birth > confinement > [noun]
childbeda1200
bend1297
gesinea1400
lying-inc1440
labour1472
down-lying1561
groaning1579
groaning-time1579
partion1656
crying out1692
accouchement1730
inlying1734
confinement1774
accubation1853
a1200 MS Trin. Cambr. in R. Morris Old Eng. Homilies (1873) 2nd Ser. 47 Man mai iheren..wich þeau wes on þe olde lage mid wimmen on þre þinges. Þat on is childbed, and þat oðer chirchgang, and þe þridde þe offring.
c1325 (c1300) Chron. Robert of Gloucester (Calig.) 7789 Þe kyng he sede of engelond..liþ mid is grete wombe at reins a child bedde.
?c1475 Catholicon Anglicum (BL Add. 15562) f. 24 To ly in chilbede, decumbere, decubare.
a1500 (?a1450) Gesta Romanorum (Harl. 7333) (1879) 237 She..browte forthe a faire sone; but she dide in hir childebed.
a1533 Ld. Berners tr. Arthur of Brytayn (?1560) xix. sig. Ciiiv That Fenyce hys quene should lye a chyldbedde at the port Noyre.
1569 R. Grafton Chron. II. 16 Philip the French king beyng merely disposed, sayde that william lay in Childebed, and norisshed his fat belly.
1654 J. Trapp Comm. Job xli. 30 As for pillows, they said they were fit only for women in child~bed.
1700 J. Wansbrough Let. 4 May in K. Miller et al. Irish Immigrants in Land of Canaan (2003) 17 Shee dyed in Childbed.
1741 S. Richardson Lett. Particular Friends cxli. 187 Childbed matronizes the giddiest Spirits.
1803 T. Jefferson Memorandum 28 Jan. in Memorandum Bks. (1997) 1091 Pd. Thompson 5.D[ollars]. for attending Edy in childbed.
1834 T. B. Macaulay William Pitt in Ess. (1854) I. 304/1 Queens run far greater risk in childbed than private women.
1887 H. Caine Deemster I. xii. 255 The young woman-body is dead in child-bed.
1941 E. Linklater Man on my Back i. 4 She also was ill-wished by my grandmother, and died in childbed.
1982 M. Z. Bradley Mists of Avalon i. xiv. 167 And now Raven, in the moonless night, screamed aloud,..like a woman in childbed.
b. As a count noun: the action or an instance of being in labour or giving birth. Chiefly in plural. Now rare.
ΚΠ
1582 T. Bentley Fift Lampe Virginitie 134 Comfort them in their sorrowes, cherish them in their child-beds, ease them in their pains.
1585 A. Golding tr. P. Mela Worke of Cosmographer ii. ii. 41 Among some of them, the childebeddes are sorrowfull, and they mourne for them that be borne.
1626 T. Hawkins tr. N. Caussin Holy Court I. ii. 165 All her child-beddes are false conceptions, and her productions, abortions.
1739 T. Lobb Pract. Treat. Distempers xiii. 230 In the second and succeeding Child-beds, the sanguine Arteries of the Womb contract more strongly.
1895 Brit. Gynaecol. Jrnl. 11 121 A woman of 49, who had suffered for ten years from haemorrhages after a childbed.
1912 H. Schmitz tr. A. Martin & P. Jung Pathol. & Treatm. Dis. Women 425 The renewed propagation of old remnants of bacteria, encapsulated in the indurations, forms a grave danger in future childbeds.
1917 Amer. Jrnl. Urol. & Sexol. 13 265 The mother whose health and life might be endangered by a childbed.
2. The bed in which a child is born. Also figurative.
ΘΚΠ
the world > existence and causation > creation > [noun] > place of production or creation
shop1517
workhouse?1533
workshop1561
childbed1568
factory1618
laboratory1654
elaboratory1667
hotbed1693
mill1771
society > inhabiting and dwelling > inhabited place > a building > furniture and fittings > bed > types of bed > [noun] > other types of bed
childbed1568
plank bed1584
table bed1633
earth-bed1637
pigeon-hole bed1685
box-bed1693
barbecue1697
plaid bedc1710
bed of state1713
pallet1839
high post1842
rocker1854
wire bed1882
lit bateau1895
string cot1895
sleigh bed1902
orthopaedic bed1943
high-low bed1956
futon1959
bateau lit1983
1568 T. Hacket tr. A. Thevet New Found Worlde xlii. f. 65 The mother,..shall remaine in hir childe bed twentie dayes, and foure houres.
1591 R. Southwell Marie Magdalens Funeral Teares f. 36 The nest, where sinne was first hatched, may be now the child-bed of grace and mercy.
?1624 G. Chapman tr. Hymn to Apollo in tr. Crowne Homers Wks. 20 Her Child-bed made, the mountaine Cynthian.
1689 H. Killigrew tr. Martial Sel. Epigrams vi. lxiv. 105 Curius..himself to's Plow-men bare Their Dinner; whose rough Wife her Childbed made, Under the Covert of an Oak's thick Shade.
1797 H. W. Tytler tr. S. de Sainte-Marthe Pædotrophia ii. 54 Maids, or nurses, round the child-bed throng.
1867 A. Strickland Lives of Queens of Eng. 395 In less than ten days the earl of Essex commenced his march, intending to drag the sick queen from her childbed.
1904 W. B. Yeats King's Threshold 20 I said the poets hung Images of the life that was in Eden About the child-bed of the world.
1968 R. E. Duncan Bending Bow 85 Isis, the mother, then rose on her child-bed.
1991 Daughters of Sarah July 9/1 The One who will help us forget That genius dies on childbed unmourned.
2009 M. Mayhue Highlander of her Own xxiii. 211 The pipe and singing were to cover the screams of pain coming from the childbed.
3. The womb. Cf. earlier bairn-bed n. at bairn n. Compounds and child's bed n. at child n. Compounds 2. rare (in early use chiefly English regional).
ΘΚΠ
the world > life > the body > sex organs > female sex organs > [noun] > womb
wombeOE
innethc888
bosom971
bitc1000
motherc1300
cloisterc1386
mawc1390
flanka1398
marisa1400
matricea1400
clausterc1400
mater?a1425
matrix?a1425
wamec1425
bellyc1440
oven?1510
bermother1527
child's bed1535
bairn-bedc1550
uterus1615
kelder1647
ventera1656
childbed1863
1863 J. C. Atkinson Provinc. Danby Childbed, the matrix or womb.
1877 E. Peacock Gloss. Words Manley & Corringham, Lincs. Childbed, the womb.
2003 D. S. Roth Ovarian Cancer Compan. 47 He debulked my cancer, I lost my childbed. He excised my ovaries; my fires gutted out.
Compounds
C1. General attributive (in sense 1).
ΘΚΠ
the world > life > source or principle of life > birth > confinement > [adjective]
childbed1494
in the strawa1661
lying-in1711
sick1828
1494 in Acts Lords of Council Civil Causes (1839) I. 372/2 Becaus his wiff wes liand in cheld bed lare abidand the will of God.
1580 C. Hollyband Treasurie French Tong Vne Accouchée & gisante, a childebed wife.
a1616 W. Shakespeare Winter's Tale (1623) iii. ii. 102 The Child-bed priuiledge deny'd, which longs To Women of all fashion.
c1676 Lady Chaworth in 12th Rep. Royal Comm. Hist. MSS (1890) App. v. 34 Lord Chesterfields lady is dead in her child-bed month.
1710 T. Fuller Pharmacopœia Extemporanea 130 An wholesome Medicine for Child-bed Women.
1716 London Gaz. No. 5425/10 A Large Trunk containing Child-bed Linnen.
1836 C. Dickens Sketches by Boz 1st Ser. I. 72 The great points about the childbed linen monthly loan society.
1899 Notes & Queries 9th Ser. 3 212 Child-Bed pew, another name for this was ‘uprising seat’.
1928 C. S. Whitehead & C. A. Hoff Ethical Sex Relations (new ed.) i. v. 189 Chloroform, even in child-bed practice, is considered an almost priceless boon.
1999 A. Arensberg Incubus ii. iv. 43 When Mary Fran was in labor with Patrick, sick and weak from childbed poisoning, the Virgin crowned with stars appeared to her and promised her a safe delivery.
C2.
childbed fever n. now historical = puerperal fever n. at puerperal adj. Compounds; (also) an instance or case of this.
ΘΚΠ
the world > health and disease > ill health > a disease > disorders of internal organs > disorders of pregnancy or birth > [noun] > puerperal sepsis or fever
childbed fever1701
puerperal fever1716
puerperal sepsis1885
1701 tr. T. Willis Receipts Cure All Distempers i. 4 (heading) An excellent Mixture for Childbed Fevers, attended with a suppression of the Loches.
1777 J. Leake Med. Instr. Dis. Women (ed. 5) II. i. 33 (heading) History of the Child-bed Fever.
1825 Lancet 2 July 385/1 He would discard the term puerperal, or child-bed feever, altogether.
1848 C. D. Meigs Females & their Dis. xli. 596 That inflammation will determine in her the onset of child-bed fever.
1929 H. W. Haggard Devils, Drugs, & Doctors iv. 86 Semmelweis was on the verge of his great discovery that childbed fever was wound infection, blood-poisoning.
2003 J. Flanders Victorian House (2004) i. 20 Childbed fever (or puerperal fever, now simply septicaemia) was the most common cause of death in childbirth.
This entry has been updated (OED Third Edition, December 2013; most recently modified version published online March 2022).
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n.a1200