Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. The condition of a woman in the process of giving birth.
- adj. Of or intended for use during childbirth: a lying-in hospital.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- n. Confinement in childbed.
- Pertaining to childbirth; obstetrical: as, a lying-in hospital.
Wiktionary
- n. The final stages of pregnancy; accouchement.
- adj. of, or relating to childbirth
GNU Webster's 1913
- n. The state attending, and consequent to, childbirth; confinement.
- n. The act of bearing a child.
WordNet 3.0
- n. concluding state of pregnancy; from the onset of contractions to the birth of a child
Examples
“The visitor, fascinated by the man's passion and occasional lucidity, discovers that he was a doctor at the lying-in wards of the General Hospital: Professor Ignaz Semmelweiss, who ran afoul of his colleagues by insisting that the very high incidence of fatal childbed fever could be checked if the doctors washed their hands before examining the patients.”
“I did not see what good an unmarried gentlewoman would be at a lying-in, but I did not argue.”
“Such derangement may begin any time after conception, and may end after delivery or continue after birth, wrote physician George Man Burrows in 1828; some women “are insane on every pregnancy or lying-in, others only occasionally.””
“When they were finished, Epstein spoke with Will and asked him about the arrangements that had been made for Carolines lying-in.”
“But thou, - why thus unwashed and clad in foul attire, now that the days of thy lying-in are accomplished?”
““A bonny errand it is,” said old Lucky Simson, “to carry away a lying-in woman as a gled [Footnote: Or Kite.] would do a clocking-hen.””
“She was taken to the lying-in room and attended by two midwives, four maids, Balhamel the physician and the crone named Dyldra, who was profound in the lore of herbs, and by some considered a witch.”
“They had them, indeed, for every profession, for every action of life, for children, marriageable girls, married, and lying-in women: they had even the god Peditum; and finally, they idolized their emperors.”
“When the operation was performed, and all the Sichemites, or Sechemites, were lying-in of the pains consequent thereupon, the holy patriarchs Simeon and Levi cut all their throats one after another.”
“One cannot help but compare this lengthy recovery from childbirth with the immediate return to productive work by plebeian women after a nine-day lying-in period.”
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