Preterm

adj, noun

adj, noun ·2 syllables ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    A premature birth or baby.
Adjective
  1. 1
    Of a premature birth or baby. not-comparable

Example

More examples

"Sixty percent of preterm births occur in Africa and South Asia. The rate of preterm births in the U.S. has fallen to 11.5 percent, but that's still the highest rate of preterm births in any industrialized country. The March of Dimes has funded studies and set up centers to find ways to cut this rate. McCabe pointed out that scientists at Stanford University found a difference in the bacteria in women's vaginas that may be critical in the understanding of prematurity."

Etymology

From pre- + term.

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