Recent Comments

Disclaimer: All the postings on this blog are automated. I do not claim any credit (or discredit) for their inherent worth. If I especially like something from this blog, I will copy and paste it at my other blog: http://toastmasterambarish.blogspot.com

Sunday, June 20, 2010

couvade: Dictionary.com Word of the Day

Dictionary.comDictionary.com Word of the Day

Earn your Word Nerd Badge
Get the Official Dictionary.com Toolbar

Word of the Day for Sunday, June 20, 2010

couvade \koo-VAHD\, noun:

A practice in certain cultures in which the husband of a woman in labor takes to his bed as though he were bearing the child.

Whether men experience couvades or not, there are plenty of other birth rituals for them to partake in: sitting through prenatal classes, going to ultrasound appointments, strapping on thirty pound lead empathy bellies, attending coed baby showers, making smalltalk during epidural sessions, photographing the birth, cutting the umbilical cord. . .
-- Tina Cassidy, Birth: The Surprising History of How We Are Born
Although husband involvement in the birth process is not uncommon in preindustrial societies, as we showed in Chapter 5, the emerging American practice of having the husband present at the delivery itself is almost unique in world societies. The increasing popularity of this new form of "couvade" in the United States is particularly intriguing theoretically and represents an unexplored issue in social-psychological research.
-- Karen Paige, Jeffery M. Paige, The politics of reproductive ritual

Couvade comes from the French couver, "to incubate or hatch."


What is the A in "A-Team"? And what does karate mean in Japanese?

This weekend, the movie box office belongs to "Toy Story 3." But pop culture has a strange way of sticking around, like a soda bottle on the beach. Consider that two pretty silly slices of entertainment, "The Karate Kid" and "The A-Team", have been around for more than a quarter of a century. Since these two are...
Read more ››


Dictionary.com Word of the Day
http://www.dictionary.com/wordoftheday/
You are currently subscribed to
Dictionary.com Word of the Day
as: dummyposting@gmail.com
Unsubscribe To subscribe to Word of the Day by email,
please send a blank message to:
join-wordoftheday@lists.lexico.com
©2010 by Dictionary.com, LLC.
555 12th Street
Suite 500
Oakland CA 94607
Subscriptions to The Word of the Day
can be turned on and off via the Web at
http://www.dictionary.com/help/faq/wordoftheday/
  Tell a friend about The Word of the Day!

No comments:

Post a Comment

Followers

Blog Archive

About Me

My photo
Learnt a lot from vicissitudes of life, I am a student of life, A work in progress, currently(sic) an overweight body but a beautiful mind, Another human seeking happiness. I believe in sharing and absorbing wisdom irrespective of the source. (aa no bhadraa kratavo...)