Monday, May 4, 2009

Things I'm curious about

I have always been quite a curious person. For instance, I once asked my mom when I was younger if cats had lips. Another time it was if dogs get the flu. Seriously, who thinks of these things? Anyway, since I'm wrapped up in the pregnancy world, I was wondering where in the heck the word midwife comes from. Alas, you cannot access the Oxford English Dictionary online, which is *the* word on etymology, but I found this answer from Dictionary.com:

Origin:
1250–1300; ME midwif, equiv. to mid with, accompanying (OE; cf. meta- ) + wif woman (OE wīf; see wife )

I guess I was wondering about the whole "wife" bit. Makes sense that it means woman!

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