couvade
/kuːˈvɑːd/
couvade noun: a practice among some peoples, such as the Basques, of the husband of a woman in the last stages of pregnancy taking to bed, avoiding certain foods, or imitating other behaviours of a pregnant woman.
Noun
couvade (countable and uncountable, plural couvades)
- A practice among some peoples, such as the Basques, of the husband of a woman in the last stages of pregnancy taking to bed, avoiding certain foods, or imitating other behaviours of a pregnant woman.
- Sympathetic pregnancy: the involuntary sympathetic experience of the husband of symptoms of his wife's pregnancy, such as weight gain or morning sickness.
Forms of couvade
| plural | couvades |
|---|
Origin of couvade
From French couvade (“brooding”).
Questions about couvade
- What does couvade mean?
- Couvade means a practice among some peoples, such as the Basques, of the husband of a woman in the last stages of pregnancy taking to bed, avoiding certain foods, or imitating other behaviours of a pregnant woman.
- What part of speech is couvade?
- Couvade is a noun.
- How do you pronounce couvade?
- Couvade is pronounced /kuːˈvɑːd/.
- What is the plural of couvade?
- The plural of couvade is couvades.
Words near couvade in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: couvade (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
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Cite this entry: “couvade.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/couvade. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.