Midwife vs Midlife - What's the difference?
midwife | midlife |
A person, usually a woman, who is trained to assist women in childbirth, but who is not a physician.
(rare, figuratively) Someone who assists in bringing about some result or project.
To act as a midwife
(figuratively) to facilitate the emergence of
:: Thomas L. Friedman. "Attention: Baby on Board." New York Times . April 13, 2010.
Occurring in the middle point of one's life, about aged 40.
The middle period of one's life.
* 2003 , Barbara Schave Klein, Not all twins are alike: psychological profiles of twinship (page 57)
*{{quote-news, year=2007, date=August 12, author=Curtis Pesmen, title=As Survivors, We Were Closer Than Lovers, work=New York Times
, passage=Now we were writing, talking, sharing bits of our lives again, glad that both of us were able to talk about our midlives (which we realized could very well have been our late lives). }}
As nouns the difference between midwife and midlife
is that midwife is a person, usually a woman, who is trained to assist women in childbirth, but who is not a physician while midlife is the middle period of one's life.As a verb midwife
is to act as a midwife.As an adjective midlife is
occurring in the middle point of one's life, about aged 40.midwife
English
Noun
(midwives)- A hundred years ago, a midwife would bring the baby into the world - going to a hospital to deliver a baby was either impossible or unheard of.
Synonyms
* accoucheuseCoordinate terms
* accoucheur * (male) midwife * man-midwifeDerived terms
* midwife toad * midwiferyVerb
- 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.
Usage notes
While elementary students are taught "replace 'f' with 'v'," the mistake resulting in "midwifed" is made often enough in informal/colloquial language to indicate the rule is not consistently followed.See also
* doula * obstetrician * obstetrics English nouns with irregular plurals English transitive verbsmidlife
English
Alternative forms
*mid-lifeAdjective
(-)Noun
(midlives)- Twins from all the patterns of twinship experienced this emotional disaster as young adults or in their midlives .
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