2107: midwife Sep 21, 2020

The word 'midwife' looks to be made up of the word 'wife' and the prefix 'mid-' as in 'middle', and while it is a compound, it is not exactly what one might think from Modern English. It actually comes from 'wife' (wīf) which was the Old English word for 'woman', and 'mid' meaning 'with' as in the German 'mit'. That comes together to meaning another woman who stays with the mother, i.e. during birth. Modern German too has the term 'Beifrau' (by-woman) with a similar history.

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