with child

English

Etymology

Replaced earlier mid child. Compare Danish and Swedish med barn.

Prepositional phrase

with child

1. (archaic) Pregnant.
   • c. 1610–1611 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Winters Tale”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act III, scene ii]:

     I would there were no age between sixteen and three-and-twenty, or that youth would sleep out the rest; for there is nothing in the between but getting wenches with child, wronging the ancientry, stealing, fighting.

   • 1722 (indicated as 1721), [Daniel Defoe], The Fortunes and Misfortunes of the Famous Moll Flanders, &c. […], London: […] W[illiam Rufus] Chetwood, […]; and T. Edling, […], published 1722, →OCLC, page 118:

     [N]othing vvas more frightful to me than his Careſſes, and the Apprehenſions of being vvith Child again by him, vvas ready to throvv me into Fits; […]

   • 1999, Rebecca Hourwich Reyher, Zulu Woman:

     I should have had two children, but I find myself with only one. Yet he spends his time with other women who are already with child.

Translations

pregnant (euphemistic)

• Catalan: en estat de bona esperança
• Chinese:

  Mandarin: 有了 (zh) (yǒule)

• Danish: med barn
• Finnish: pieniin päin
• Galician: encinta f
• German: in guter Hoffnung sein, in der Hoffnung sein
• Irish: ag iompar clainne
• Malay: hamil (ms), berbadan dua (ms)
• Swedish: med barn (sv)

See also

• with young, in kid