lightening
noun
Simple meaning
Descent of the uterus into the pelvic cavity that occurs late in pregnancy.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
lytuhningSay the bold part a little louder.
IPA pronunciation (US)
ˈlaɪtənɪŋ
This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.
IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.
Definition
Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.
noun
medicine
Descent of the uterus into the pelvic cavity that occurs late in pregnancy; the fetus is said to have dropped
medicine
The sensation caused by the descent of the uterus into the pelvic cavity before the onset of labour
The act or result of making something light or lighter.
nautical
The removal of cargo (especially crude oil) from a vessel in order to reduce its draft
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
Aura for this meaning
This meaning: Descent of the uterus into the pelvic cavity that occurs late in pregnancy; the fetus is said to have dropped
Used this way, lightening is a specialist word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. This is a clinical use: it belongs to medical description, where it is factual rather than emotive.
- Emotional tone
- Neutral
- Formality
- Specialist/technical
- Intensity
- Not strongly marked
- How common
- Specialized
- Connotation
- Clinical and technical
- Usage feel
- Technical and specialized
Where it naturally appears
- Medicine/healthcare
- Science
- Technical/specialist writing
Usage note
In general conversation this sense usually needs explaining — outside its field, people reach for a plainer word.
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.