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Maternity   /mətˈərnɪti/   Listen
noun
Maternity  n.  
1.
The state of being a mother; motherhood.
2.
The character of a mother; maternal quality; motherliness.
3.
The maternity ward; the maternity department of a hospital.


adjective
maternity  adj.  
1.
Of or pertaining to childbirth or the period during which a woman is pregnant; as, maternity care; a maternity hospital.
2.
For use during pregnancy; as, a maternity outfit.





Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48


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"Maternity" Quotes from Famous Books



... this student only as disabilities from which he is happily exempt (as if a disability could come into any life but through the door of an ability); and her larger measure of the divine attributes, faith, hope, and love—love, as compassion and as maternity—are seen as simple weaknesses to which ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 1, July, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... domesticity—no jest—no anxiety—no expectation—no variety of action or of thought. Love, all fulfilling, and various modes of power, are alone expressed; the Virgin never shows the complacency or petty watchfulness of maternity; she sits serene, supporting the child whom she ever looks upon, as a stranger among strangers; "Behold the handmaid of the Lord" forever written ...
— On the Old Road Vol. 1 (of 2) - A Collection of Miscellaneous Essays and Articles on Art and Literature • John Ruskin
... all. The sublime instinct of maternity had been awakened within her. When she saw the physician depart, bearing her child, she felt as if soul and body were being rent asunder. When could she hope to see again this little son who was doubly dear to her by reason of the very sorrow and anguish he had cost her? The ...
— The Honor of the Name • Emile Gaboriau
... seldom furnished materials for the scandalous chronicle. Even Madame Joseph herself has either been gallant or calumniated. Report says that to the nocturnal assiduities of Eugene de Beauharnais and of Colonel la Fond-Blaniac she is exclusively indebted to the honour of maternity, and that these two rivals even fought a duel concerning the right of paternity. Eugene de Beauharnais never was a great favourite with Joseph Bonaparte, whose reserved manners and prudence form too great a contrast to his noisy and blundering way to accord with each other. ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... he had called it. The man, in his former marriage, had been renowned all up and down tidewater as a rake and a brute, and now it was an exception when he did not have at least one baby on his knee. And he knew, according to Mr. Farwell, more about infant diet than the whole staff of a maternity hospital. ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill


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