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maternity

noun

Simple meaning

Being a mother.

Pronunciation

Say it like this:

muhturnihtee

Say the bold part a little louder.

US device voice
IPA pronunciation (US)

məˈtɝnɪti

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.

Word Review

Definition

Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.

noun

  1. The state of being a mother; motherhood.

  2. The state of being pregnant; the period from conception to birth when a woman carries a developing fetus in her uterus

  3. A ward or department in a hospital in which babies are born.

Word at a Glance

Difficulty
B1 · Intermediate (estimated)
Frequency
Common
Typical Use
General English

Word Aura™

How this word commonly comes across.

Aura for this meaning

This meaning: The state of being a mother; motherhood.

Used this way, maternity is a reasonably familiar word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. It usually sounds natural in a wide range of settings.

Emotional tone
Neutral
Formality
Neutral
Intensity
Not strongly marked
How common
Moderately common
Connotation
Matter-of-fact
Usage feel
Neutral and straightforward

Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.

More ways to use maternity

  • “She took a few months of maternity leave after her baby was born.”

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Common Patterns and Combinations

How this word naturally appears with others.

Ward

maternity wardmaternity hospitals

Other combinations

maternity leavematernity homematernity carematernity benefitpaid maternitymaternity services

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Word Family

Related forms, grouped by how they connect.

Word family

Words built from the same root.

  • maternaladjectiveDerived adjective

    Related to The state of being a mother.

Compound terms

Established multiword terms.

  • maternity hospitalnounCompound term

    A hospital that provides care for women during pregnancy and childbirth and for newborn infants.

  • maternity wardnounCompound term

    A hospital ward that provides care for women during pregnancy and childbirth and for newborn infants.

Related Words

Connected to the same idea, not synonyms.

More about this wordSynonyms, forms, origin

Synonyms

Sense: being a mother

motherhood

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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.