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Date: Sat Apr 18 03:03:17 EDT 1998
Subject: A.Word.A.Day--midwife
X-Bonus: Technology is dominated by two types of people: those who understand what they do not manage, and those who manage what they do not understand.
midwife (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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Source: A Word A Day email newsletter http://wordsmith.org/awad/archives/0498
