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Childing
Definitions
- 1 Able to bear children; fertile; also, pregnant, or in the process of childbirth, or having just given birth to a child. archaic, not-comparable
"With fire and sword the country round / Was wasted far and wide, / And many a childing mother then, / And new-born baby died; / But things like that, you know, must be / At every famous victory."
- 2 Of a flowering plant: producing younger florets around an older flower. archaic, not-comparable
"[page 323] Bellis minor hortenſis prolifera. Double double Daiſies or childing Daiſies. […] The chiefeſt variety conſiſteth in this, that is beareth many ſmall double flowers, ſtanding vpon very ſhort ſtalkes round about the middle flower, […] [page 324] The French call them Paſquettes, and Marguerites, and the Fruitfull ſort, or thoſe that beare ſmall flowers about the middle one, Margueritons: our Engliſh women call them Iacke an Apes on horſe-backe, as they doe Marigolds before recited, or childing Daiſies: but the Phyſitians and Apothecaries doe in generall call them, eſpecially the ſingle or Field kindes, Conſolida minor."
- 3 Fruitful; productive. figuratively, not-comparable, obsolete
"The Spring, the Sommer, / The childing Autumne, angry Winter change / Their wonted Liueries; and the mazed worlde, / By their increaſe, now knowes not which is which; […]"
- 1 gerund of child: the act or process of childbearing or childbirth. archaic, form-of, gerund, uncountable
"This Conſtantia was fiftie yeares of age before ſhe was conceiued with him; whom the emperor Henrie the ſixth to auoide all doubt and ſurmiſe that of hir conception and childing might be thought, and to the perill of the empire inſue: cauſed his regall tent to be pitched abrode in place where euery man might reſort."
- 1 present participle and gerund of child form-of, gerund, participle, present
Etymology
From Middle English childing, childinge [and other forms], from childen (“to give birth to a child”) + -ing, -inge (suffix forming gerunds from verbs). Equivalent to child + -ing.
From late Middle English childing (“pregnant”), from childen (“to give birth to a child”) + -ing, -inge (suffix forming the present participles of verbs, which were often used as adjectives); equivalent to child (verb) + -ing (suffix forming adjectives with the sense ‘having a specified characteristic, nature, or quality’, and forming the present participles of verbs).
From late Middle English childing (“pregnant”), from childen (“to give birth to a child”) + -ing, -inge (suffix forming the present participles of verbs, which were often used as adjectives); equivalent to child (verb) + -ing (suffix forming adjectives with the sense ‘having a specified characteristic, nature, or quality’, and forming the present participles of verbs).
See also for "childing"
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