Word.ws English Dictionary

misbirth

misbirth noun: a miscarriage; also, a miscarried foetus, a stillborn baby.

Noun

misbirth (plural misbirths)

  1. (archaic) A miscarriage; also, a miscarried foetus, a stillborn baby.
    • What has she in the bag? A misbirth with a trailing navelcord, hushed in ruddy wool.1922 February 2, James Joyce, “[Episode 3: Proteus]”, in Ulysses, Paris: Shakespeare and Company […], →OCLC, part I [Telemachia], page 38

Forms of misbirth

pluralmisbirths

Origin of misbirth

From mis- + birth. Compare Old English misbyrd, which is unlikely to be a direct etymon.

Questions about misbirth

What does misbirth mean?
Misbirth means a miscarriage; also, a miscarried foetus, a stillborn baby.
What part of speech is misbirth?
Misbirth is a noun.
What is the plural of misbirth?
The plural of misbirth is misbirths.

Words near misbirth in the dictionary

  1. misbilling
  2. misbills
  3. misbind
  4. misbinding
  5. misbinds
  6. misbirth
  7. misbirths
  8. misbisection
  9. misblame
  10. misblamed
  11. misblames

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: misbirth (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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