English

Prepositional phrase

with child

1. (euphemistic) Pregnant.
   • 1623, William Shakespeare, The Winter's Tale, act 3, scene 2:

     I would there were no age between sixteen and three-and-twenty, or that youth would sleep out the rest; for there is nothing in the between but getting wenches with child, wronging the ancientry, stealing, fighting.

   • 1722, Daniel Defoe, Moll Flanders, chapter 20:

     Nothing was more frightful to me than his caresses, and the apprehensions of being with child again by him was ready to throw me into fits.

   • 1999, Rebecca Hourwich Reyher, Zulu Woman:

     I should have had two children, but I find myself with only one. Yet he spends his time with other women who are already with child.

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