Back to Marilyn's Midwifery Pagemidwife (MID-wife) noun
1. A person, usually a woman, who is trained to assist women in childbirth. Also called Regional: granny.
2. One who assists in or takes a part in bringing about a result: "In the Renaissance, artists and writers start to serve as midwives of fame" (Carlin Romano).
midwife tr.verb
1. To assist in the birth of (a baby).
2. To assist in bringing forth or about: "Washington's efforts to midwife a Mideast settlement" (Newsweek). [Middle English midwif : probably mid, with (from Old English) + wif, woman (from Old English wif).]
WORD HISTORY:
The word midwife is the sort of word whose etymology is perfectly clear until one tries to figure it out. Wife would seem to refer to the woman giving birth, who is usually a wife, but mid? A knowledge of older senses of words helps us with this puzzle. Wife in its earlier history meant "woman," as it still did when the compound midwife was formed in Middle English (first recorded around 1300). Mid is probably a preposition, meaning "together with." Thus a midwife was literally a "with woman" or "a woman who assists other women in childbirth." Even though obstetrics has been rather resistant to midwifery until fairly recently, the etymology of obstetric is rather similar, going back to the Latin word obstetrix, "a midwife," from the verb obstare, "to stand in front of," and the feminine suffix -trix; the obstetrix would thus literally stand in front of the baby. "Ms. O'Dell: Afraid of dying, and afraid of, the worst thing is, afraid of dying alone. And I want to accompany someone to the door. You know, the experience has been many times almost exactly like walking down a long corridor, say in a school, to the principal's office. And he goes through, and it's not my turn. And it's a long, lonely walk. And those hours spent beside someone's bed as you walk down that corridor together, and then he goes through, it is truly a privilege. It's an exquisite experience, and it- I've often thought, this must be what it's like to be a midwife." Josephs's House Provides Home For Men With AIDS, All Things Considered (NPR), 8 Jan 1995. This week's theme: words with interesting histories.
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