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)

(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
Polish: połóg (pl) m
Portuguese: puerpério m
Spanish: puerperio (es) m

References

“puerperium”, in Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary

Anagrams

pure-impure

Latin

Etymology

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

Pronunciation

(Classical) IPA^(key): /pu.erˈpe.ri.um/, [puɛrˈpɛriʊ̃ˑ]

(Ecclesiastical) IPA^(key): /pu.erˈpe.ri.um/, [puerˈpɛːrium]

Noun

puerperium n (genitive puerperiī or puerperī); second declension

childbirth, delivery, childbed, confinement, lying-in
- 121 CE, Suetonius, De vita Caesarum 8:
  puerperiō cubāre
  to be in childbed
- c. 77 CE – 79 CE, Pliny the Elder, Naturalis Historia
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

→ English: puerperium

References

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