maternity

UK/məˈtɜːnɪti/US/məˈtɜɹnəti/

nounB2+Common in everyday speech and writing · #5,372 of 15,258neutral

Maternity is everything to do with becoming and being a mother. Pregnancy, birth, and the months after.

The word appears mainly as a modifier, so maternity leave, a maternity ward, maternity clothes and maternity pay are all standard, and each is a piece of ordinary life. The matching word for fathers is paternity, and parental covers both. In several countries the length of maternity leave is a live political argument. The related adjective maternal describes motherly feeling or the mother's side of a family.

Definitions of maternity

1nounmaternityThe state or period of being a mother, especially around childbirth.B2+
“She goes on maternity leave in April.”

Where it comes from

Latin
māternitās
French
maternité
English, today
maternity

From French maternité, from Latin māternitās.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA

Practised in A Man Called Ove, Babies & Growing Up

First appears in chapter 7 of A Man Called Ove.

Practise this word

maternity in the wild

The Princess Royal Maternity Hospital is a maternity hospital in Glasgow, Scotland.
Princess Royal Maternity Hospital
Aberdeen Maternity Hospital (AMH) is a specialist maternity hospital in Aberdeen, Scotland.
Aberdeen Maternity Hospital
Queen Charlotte's and Chelsea Hospital is one of the oldest maternity hospitals in Europe, founded in 1739 in London.
Queen Charlotte's and Chelsea Hospital
Thorpe Coombe Hospital was a psychiatric hospital and former maternity hospital in Walthamstow, London.
Thorpe Coombe Hospital
The General Lying-In Hospital was one of the first maternity hospitals in Great Britain.
General Lying-In Hospital

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From Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. These sentences were written by other people about their own subjects; they are here to show the word at work, not as anybody’s opinion.

Related words

maternity leave

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