Word.ws English Dictionary

midwive

midwive is the alternative form of midwife.

Meaning of midwife

Verb

midwife (third-person singular simple present midwifes, present participle midwifing, simple past and past participle midwifed)

  1. (transitive) To act as a midwife.
  2. (figuratively, transitive) To facilitate the emergence of.
    • But the bigger objective was to help Iraqis midwife a democratic model that could inspire reform across the Arab-Muslim world and give the youth there a chance at a better future.2010 April 13, Thomas L. Friedman, “Attention: Baby on Board.”, in The New York Times

See all 4 meanings of midwife

Forms of midwive

third-person singular presentmidwives
present participlemidwiving
past participlemidwived
pastmidwived

Origin of midwive

From Middle English *midwiven, *mydwyven, suggested by the verbal noun mydwyvyng (“midwivery”, literally “midwiving”).

Questions about midwive

What is midwive the alternative form of?
Midwive is the alternative form of midwife.

Words near midwive in the dictionary

  1. midwintry
  2. midwise
  3. midwit
  4. midwits
  5. midwittery
  6. midwive
  7. midwived
  8. midwivery
  9. midwives
  10. midwiving
  11. midwoman

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: midwive (page history and authors); midwife (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: “midwive.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/midwive. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.