pregnant

• prægnant (obsolete)
• pregnaunt (obsolete)

• IPA^(key): /ˈpɹɛɡnənt/

• Audio (US):

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ɛɡnənt
• Hyphenation: preg‧nant

From Middle English preignant, from Old French preignant, pregnant, also prenant (compare archaic Modern French prégnant), and their source, Latin praegnāns (“pregnant”), probably from prae- (“pre-”) + *gnāscī, an archaic form of nāscī (“to be born”). Displaced Old English bearnēacen (literally "child-enlarged").

pregnant (comparative more pregnant, superlative most pregnant)

1. (chiefly not comparable) Carrying developing offspring within the body.

   I went to the doctor and, guess what, I’m five weeks pregnant!

   I became pregnant in July 2014.

   • 2017 July 13, Bonnie Rochman, “Mothers-To-Be Aren’t Told Enough About Genetic Testing”, in Time‎^[1]:

     Once upon a time, not so long ago, women got pregnant and spent nine months in suspense before finding out if they were having a boy or a girl. But today? That waiting game is completely outdated, even quaint.

   • 2025 February 19, Christian Wolmar, “Mind your language...”, in RAIL, number 1029, page 34:

     It suggests that pregnant women should be called pregnant people, presumably on the basis that just perhaps there may be a pregnant man somewhere.

   1. (sometimes proscribed) Of a couple: expecting a baby together.

      We are pregnant.

2. (comparable) Meaningful, having numerous possibilities or implications; full of promise; abounding in ability, resources, etc.

   a pregnant pause

   • c. 1601–1602 (date written), William Shakespeare, “Twelfe Night, or What You Will”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act II, scene ii]:

     wherein the pregnant enemy does much

   • 2019 January 26, Kitty Empire [pseudonym], “The Streets review – the agony and ecstasy of a great everyman”, in Katharine Viner, editor, The Guardian‎^[2], London: Guardian News & Media, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 8 April 2019:

     The many tear-jerkers deal with finality, with death and the end of love, with a stoicism pregnant with feeling.

3. (poetic) Fecund, fertile, prolific (usually of soil, ground, etc.).
   • 1590, Edmund Spenser, “Book III, Canto VI”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC:

     The sunne-beames bright vpon her body playd, / Being through former bathing mollifide, / And pierst into her wombe, where they embayd / With so sweet sence and secret power vnspide, / That in her pregnant flesh they shortly fructifide.

4. (obsolete) Affording entrance; receptive; yielding; willing; open; prompt.
   • c. 1602, William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Troylus and Cressida”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act IV, scene iv]:

     play at subtill games; faire vertues all;
     To which the Grecians are most prompt and pregnant

5. (obsolete) Ready-witted; clever; ingenious.

• (carrying offspring (standard)): expecting, expecting a baby, expectant, gravid (of animals only), with child, fertilized, gone (for a particular number of months)
• (carrying offspring (colloquial/slang)): eating for two, having a bun in the oven, in the family way, knocked up, preggers, up the duff, up the spout
• (carrying offspring (euphemistic)): in an interesting condition, in the family way
• (having many possibilities or implications): meaningful, significant
• See also Thesaurus:pregnant

• (carrying developing offspring): in trouble

• impregnate
• pregnancy

pregnant (plural pregnants)

1. A pregnant person.
   • 1843, William Robert Wilde, Austria: Its Literary, Scientific, and Medical Institutions:

     The Entbundenen, or those already delivered, are separate from those pregnants awaiting their accouchement

Apparently from Middle French pregnant, preignant (“pressing, compelling”), present participle of prembre (“to press”), from Latin premere (“to press”).

pregnant (comparative more pregnant, superlative most pregnant)

1. (now rare) Compelling; clear, evident. [from 14th c.]
   • 1751, [Tobias] Smollett, The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle […], volume (please specify |volume=I to IV), London: Harrison and Co., […], →OCLC:

     Peregrine was in a little time a distinguished character, not only for his acuteness of apprehension, but also for that mischievous fertility of fancy, of which we have already given such pregnant examples.

• “Mila Kunis Tells Fathers-to-Be to Stop Saying 'We're Pregnant'”, in ABC News‎^[3], 11 June 2014, archived from the original on 12 June 2014.

Borrowed from Middle French pregnant, from Old French pregnant, from Latin praegnāns.

• IPA^(key): /prɛxˈnɑnt/

• Audio:

  (file)

• Hyphenation: preg‧nant
• Rhymes: -ɑnt

pregnant (comparative pregnanter, superlative pregnantst)

1. poignant, incisive
2. meaningful, polysemic
3. (obsolete) important

Borrowed from German prägnant and French prégnant.

• IPA^(key): /preɡˈnant/
• Rhymes: -ant
• Hyphenation: preg‧nant

pregnant m or n (feminine singular pregnantă, masculine plural pregnanți, feminine and neuter plural pregnante)

1. (literary) evident, marked, manifest

   Synonym: (literary) vădit

• “pregnant”, in DEX online—Dicționare ale limbii române (Dictionaries of the Romanian language) (in Romanian), 2004–2025

• IPA^(key): /prɛɡˈnant/

pregnant (comparative pregnantare, superlative pregnantast)

1. pregnant (clear and pithy, of an expression, language, or the like)
2. striking (distinctive, pronounced)

Pregnant as in carrying a baby is gravid (of a human) or dräktig (of an animal).

• pregnant in Svensk ordbok (SO)
• pregnant in Svenska Akademiens ordlista (SAOL)
• pregnant in Svenska Akademiens ordbok (SAOB)