para
noun · adjective
Simple meaning
The number of liveborn children a woman has delivered.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
pehruhSay the bold part a little louder.
IPA pronunciation (US)
ˈpɛɹə
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
medicineobstetrics
The number of liveborn children a woman has delivered
medicine
A woman who has given birth or brought pregnancies to viable gestational age a certain number of times, indicated by the number prepended to this word.
A person who suffers from paraplegia.
A passage in text that starts on a new line, the first line sometimes being indented, and usually marks a change of topic.
An abnormal sexual arousal or attraction, especially to objects or situations that are not of a sexual nature; typically of extreme or pathological nature.
adjective
UKAustraliaslang
Very drunk.
Word at a Glance
- Difficulty
- A2 · Elementary (estimated)
- Frequency
- Common
- Typical Use
- General English
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
Aura for this meaning
This meaning: (obstetrics) the number of liveborn children a woman has delivered
Used this way, para 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.