Word.ws English Dictionary

fetal position

fetal position noun: the location of the fetus inside a womb.

fetal position: the location of the fetus inside a womb
Image: Michael Dunn, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Noun

fetal position (plural fetal positions)

  1. (literally) The location of the fetus inside a womb.
  2. A posture in which the head and knees are brought close to the abdomen, usually while sitting or lying on one side.
    • The fetal position is the most common sleeping position.
    • When life's stresses get to be too much ... and my pacifier and thumb don't cut it ... there's only one thing for me to do. Return to the fetal position.2013 February 1, Tom Armstrong, Marvin (comic)

Forms of fetal position

pluralfetal positions
alternative formfoetal position

Origin of fetal position

From the position a fetus typically assumes late in pregnancy.

Questions about fetal position

What does fetal position mean?
Fetal position means the location of the fetus inside a womb.
What part of speech is fetal position?
Fetal position is a noun.
What is the plural of fetal position?
The plural of fetal position is fetal positions.

Words near fetal position in the dictionary

  1. fetal
  2. fetal alcohol spectrum disorder
  3. fetal alcohol spectrum disorders
  4. fetal alcohol syndrome
  5. fetal alcohol syndromes
  6. fetal position
  7. fetal positions
  8. fetalization
  9. fetally
  10. fetas
  11. fetation

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: fetal position (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.

Last updated:

Cite this entry: “fetal position.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/fetal_position. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.