midwifery

UK/mɪdˈwɪfəɹi/US/ˈmɪdˌwaɪfəɹi/

nounC2Very rare — outside the 30,000 commonest English words, so you will meet it in writing rather than in speech — midwife sits at #10,184mostly written

Midwifery is the profession of helping women give birth. Train in midwifery.

The wife in midwife means woman, and the mid means with, so it is with-woman. Midwifery is a degree profession now and was for centuries passed on by apprenticeship.

Definitions of midwifery

1nounmidwiferyThe profession of helping women give birth.C2
“Midwifery took her all over the county at every hour.”

midwifery is a profession.

Where it comes from

From midwife, Middle English for with-woman, meaning the woman who is with the mother.

Middle English
medewifry
English, today
midwifery

From Middle English medewifry; equivalent to midwife + ery.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA

Practise this word

midwifery in the wild

A professional in midwifery is known as a midwife.
Midwifery
However, midwifery-led care was also associated with a longer mean length of labor as measured in hours.
Midwifery
Ixchel or Ix Chel is the 16th-century name of the aged jaguar goddess of midwifery and medicine in ancient Maya culture.
Ixchel
The Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC) is the statutory regulator for nursing and midwifery professions in the UK.
Nursing and Midwifery Council
In some traditional Maya communities, a goddess of midwifery is invoked, and midwives are generally believed to be assigned their profession through signs and visions.
Midwifery in Maya society

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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

midwife

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