A.Word.A.Day --puerperal

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Today's Word

puerperal

PRONUNCIATION:

(pyoo-UHR-puhr-uhl)

MEANING:

adjective: Relating to childbirth or following childbirth.

ETYMOLOGY:

From Latin puerpera (woman who has given birth), from puer (child) + -para (carrying), from parere (to bear). The Latin puer is ultimately from the Indo-European root pau- (few, little), which is also the source of few, foal, filly, pony, poor, pauper, poco, puerile, poltroon, pullulate, punchinello, and catchpole. Earliest documented use: 1716.

USAGE:

“In the 1830s, women having babies at lying-in hospitals ran a far greater risk of dying from puerperal sepsis than women having babies at home.”
John Irving; The Long, Cruel History of the Anti-Abortion Crusade; The New York Times; Jun 23, 2019.

See more usage examples of puerperal in Vocabulary.com’s dictionary.

A THOUGHT FOR TODAY:

All visible objects, man, are but as pasteboard masks. But in each event -- in the living act, the undoubted deed -- there, some unknown but still reasoning thing puts forth the mouldings of its features from behind the unreasoning mask. -Herman Melville, novelist and poet (1 Aug 1819-1891)

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