midwife

nounverbattested in dialogue

//ˈmɪd.waɪf//
//ˈmɪd.(w)ɪf//

A person, usually a woman, who is trained to assist women in childbirth, but who is not a physician.

noun

1
A person, usually a woman, who is trained to assist women in childbirth, but who is not a physician.
A hundred years ago, a midwife would bring the baby into the world - going to a hospital to deliver a baby was either impossible or unheard of.
Modernly, a hospital midwife is usually a registered nurse.
The senior midwife confirmed that […] occasionally a multigravid woman could feel little more than slight abdominal discomfort.
Despite Richard's efforts to midwive his own narrative of legitimacy, the source of this legendary one cannot be controlled because it has moved from the mouths of nurses, midwives and gossips into the public domain.
2
figurativeSomeone who assists in bringing about some result or project.
He had not read it, but he said that every detail in it was true. This struck me as a rather cavalier attitude to truth, but hatred is not the midwife of caution or accuracy.

Etymology

From Middle English midwif, corresponding to mid (“with”) + wif (“woman, wife, female”). It appears not to be entirely clear whether the original understanding was “with-woman” in the sense of “attending/assisting woman”, or “they who are with the woman” (namely the mother).

verb

1
To act as a midwife.
2
figurativeTo facilitate the emergence of.
But the bigger objective was to help Iraqis midwife a democratic model that could inspire reform across the Arab-Muslim world and give the youth there a chance at a better future.
In the mid-1960s, Reichism was midwifed into reexistence by such stalwarts as William Schutz, Bernard Gunther, Charlotte Selver, Alexander Lowen, Ida Rolf, and many other exponents of human knead needs.

Forms

plural: midwives
past tense: midwifed
past participle: midwifed
present participle: midwifing
third person singular: midwifes

midway · The middle; the midst.Midway · An atoll in the North Pacific the site of a major World War…Midwest · The area of the contiguous United States contained in the…

midwife · A person, usually a woman, who is trained to assist women in childbirth, but who is not a physician.

might · Power, strength, force, or influence held by a person or…mighty · Very strong; possessing might.migraine · A severe, disabling headache, usually affecting only one side…

The neighbouring pages — Alphabetical order follows the rules of the language, not byte values: an accent decides only between two otherwise identical words, and Spanish files Ñ as a letter of its own.