Lying-in

adj, noun

adj, noun ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    The final stages of pregnancy; accouchement.

    "from our first knowing each other, which was soon after my lying-in, we were almost inseparable companions […]"

  2. 2
    concluding state of pregnancy; from the onset of contractions to the birth of a child wordnet
  3. 3
    A period of postpartum confinement, typically a month or longer, formerly common in Europe and still practiced in some parts of the world.

    "As she lay by the birth-fire, she gazed on the face of the child asleep in the bamboo cradle […] Once free from the lying-in, Linchong set herself to bringing up the baby."

Adjective
  1. 1
    of, or relating to childbirth not-comparable
  2. 2
    of, or relating to postpartum confinement not-comparable

Synonyms

All synonyms
childbedconfinementlaborlabourparturiencytravail

Example

More examples

"from our first knowing each other, which was soon after my lying-in, we were almost inseparable companions […]"

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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.