puerperium

English

Etymology

Borrowed from Latin puerperium (“childbed, childbirth”), from puerpera (“woman in labor or childbed”) +‎ -ium (nominal suffix), from puerperus (“parturient, bringing forth children”), from puer (“child, boy”) +‎ pariō (“to bring forth, bear”) +‎ -us (adjectival suffix).

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /ˌpju.əˈpɪə.ɹi.əm/
• (General American) IPA^(key): /ˌpju.ɚˈpɪɹ.i.əm/
• Rhymes: -ɪəɹiəm

Noun

puerperium (plural puerperia)

1. (obstetrics) The period of time lasting around a month immediately following childbirth, when the mother’s uterus shrinks back to its prepartum state.
   • 1921, Robert Bing, Charles Lewis Allen, A Textbook of Nervous Diseases: For Students and Practicing Physicians; In Thirty Lectures, page 84:

     As exciting causes, psychic traumata, exposure to cold, the puerperium, excesses, have been brought forward.

Related terms

• antepartum
• parous
• postpartum
• puerpera
• puerperal

 

Translations

period of time following childbirth

• Arabic: اَلنِّفَاس (an-nifās)
• Chinese:

  Mandarin: 產褥期／产褥期 (zh) (chǎnrùqī)

• Czech: šestinedělí (cs)
• Dutch: kraambed (nl) n
• Finnish: lapsivuodeaika
• German: Wochenbett (de) n
• Hungarian: gyermekágy (hu)
• Icelandic: sængurlega f
• Macedonian: леунство n (leunstvo)
• Polish: połóg (pl) m
• Portuguese: puerpério (pt) m
• Spanish: puerperio (es) m
• Tày: dú bươn, bươn coòng

References

• “puerperium”, in Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster, 1996–present.

Anagrams

• pure-impure

Latin

Etymology

From puerpera (“woman in labor or childbed”) +‎ -ium (nominal suffix).

Pronunciation

• (Classical Latin) IPA^(key): /pu.erˈpe.ri.um/, [puɛrˈpɛriʊ̃ˑ]
• (modern Italianate Ecclesiastical) IPA^(key): /pu.erˈpe.ri.um/, [puerˈpɛːrium]

Noun

puerperium n (genitive puerperiī or puerperī); second declension

1. childbirth, delivery, childbed, confinement, lying-in
   • c. 69 CE – 122 CE, Suetonius, Calig. 8:

     puerperiō cubāre

     to be in childbed

   • c. 77 CE – 79 CE, Pliny the Elder, Naturalis Historia
2. newborn child, infant
   • c. 117 CE, Tacitus, Annales 12.6
   • c. 45 CE – 96 CE, Statius, Thebiad 4.280

Inflection

Second-declension noun (neuter).

Case	Singular	Plural
Nominative	puerperium	puerperia
Genitive	puerperiī puerperī1	puerperiōrum
Dative	puerperiō	puerperiīs
Accusative	puerperium	puerperia
Ablative	puerperiō	puerperiīs
Vocative	puerperium	puerperia

¹Found in older Latin (until the Augustan Age).

Related terms

• pariō
• puer
• puerperus

 

Descendants

• → Italian: puerperio
• → English: puerperium

References

• “puerperium”, in Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879) A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press