gravid
adjUS, UK /ˈɡɹævɪd/
Etymology From Latin gravidus (“laden, pregnant”), from gravis (“heavy”).
1
Figuratively, Of egglaying animals Pregnant.
- In vast state incubators, rows upon rows of gravid bottles will supply the world with the population it requires. The family system will disappear; society, sapped at its very base, will have to find new foundations; and Eros, beautifully and irresponsibly free, will flit like a gay butterfly from flower to flower through a sunlit world.1921, Aldous Huxley, Crome Yellow, London: Chatto & Windus:
- The gravest problems of obstetrics and forensic medicine were examined with as much animation as the most popular beliefs on the state of pregnancy such as the forbidding to a gravid woman to step over a country stile lest, by her movement, the navelcord should strangle her creature1922 February, James Joyce, Ulysses, Paris: Shakespeare and Company, […], →OCLC:
2 more examples
- One slender hand was raised in a graceful gesture gravid with meaning.2004, David Mitchell, Cloud Atlas, London: Sceptre (Hodder and Stoughton), →ISBN, page 345:
- The minute she'd settled into the seat next to him, her billowing widow's rig had got redisposed to reveal her neatly gravid waistline, at which, now, he nodded.2006, Thomas Pynchon, “Bilocations”, in Against the Day, New York, N.Y.: Penguin Press, →ISBN, page 507:
- Derived terms
- gravidic, gravidism, gravidity, gravidly, gravidness, multigravid, nongravid, nulligravid, paucigravid, pregravid