parturiency

parturiency (uncountable)

1. Parturition
   • 1904, Charles J. Bayer, Modern Researches, Physiological, Psychological, page 230:

     Is it possible for a woman to go through parturiency without pain?

   • 1990, John J. Bonica, The Management of Pain - Volume 2, page 1314:

     Savages of a low degree of civilization are generally little troubled by parturiency.

   • 2016, Nicola Goc, Women, Infanticide and the Press, 1822-1922, page 45:

     We have seen how the pithy headline 'Infanticide' was a powerful trope for the infanticidal woman's actions and represented the young woman who killed her newborn baby as both the personification of maternal deviancy and as a woman rendered mad by parturiency.

2. (rare) Gestation.
   • 1819, The London Medical Repository, Monthly Journal, and Review, page 450:

     It seems, if we may so use the metaphor, to have been the "destroying angel" of naturalized and injurious systematism, and has greatly assisted to substitue the innovation of the more truly elevating attainments of practical and useful pursuits; not merely intended to produce a book on a Greek word, but the discovery of a useful acid, an alert remedy , or hidden principle of the universe –combining the useful with the ornamental, the parturiency of the fruit with the flower.

   • 2004, Rita B. Dandridge, Black Women's Activism, page 8:

     In Night Song, Cara Henson, the teacher, becomes pregnant in her romantic relationship with Chase Jefferson, a cavalier soldier, but refuses to tell him about her parturiency.

   • 2021, Afe Adogame, Indigeneity in African Religions:

     Ọza people believe that such ritual performances have potency on women's fertility, protect the parturiency and secure a safe delivery.

   • 2022, Lee A. Fleisher, Evidence-Based Practice of Anesthesiology, page 447:

     It is estimated that 0.75% to 2% of pregnant women in developed countries undergo nonobstetric surgery during the course of parturiency; approximately 42% undergo surgery in the first trimester, 35% in the second, and 23% in the third trimester.

3. (figurative) A process or quality that brings forth something new.
   • 1731, Nathaniel Markwick, The Prerogative of the Jews Asserted Without Diminution:

     The Woman, i.e. Church in her travelling State, may be considered, First, with respect to her Spiritual Parturiency, which great thing being effected powerfully and suddenly, by the abundant Grace of God poured forth upon her in Prayers and Supplications, it thence becomes an easy Birth, the Kindliness and Facility whereof thus expressed, Isa. lxvi. 7. Before she travailed she brought forth: before he pain came she was delived of a Man-child.

   • 1810, Steele, “Letters on Epitaphs”, in The Spectator, volume 9:

     As you have considered human nature in all its lights, you must be extremely well apprized, that there is a very close correspondence between the outward and the inward man; that scarce the least dawning, the least parturiency towards a thought can be stirring in the mind of man, without producing a suitable revolution in his exteriors, which will easily discover itself to an adept in the theory of the phiz.

   • 1816, Proclus, The Six Books of Proclus, the Platonic Successor, page 516:

     And he who is incapable of being healed without a certain action, is incited to the performance of it, in order that the soul being liberated from her parturiency and stupid astonishment about that which is base, and repenting of her own evils, may begin to be purified.

   • 1973, Matthew Arnold, Robert Henry Super, English Literature and Irish Politics, page 285:

     Perhaps, our Irish friends might do well also to perpend the good bishop's caution against "a general parturiency in Ireland with respect to politics and public counsel;" a parturiency which in clever young Irishmen does often, certainly, seem to be excessive.

   • 2018, John H. Muirhead, The Platonic Tradition in Anglo-Saxon Philosophy:

     Even with regard to the “seeing of all things in God” we have Norris's own word for it that it was “a notion which he very early lighted upon by the natural parturiency of his own mind before he had consulted with any authors that might imbrue him with it", and that he was only confirmed in it by finding it in the Platonists both anceint and modern, though in none "so copiously, so purposely and dexterously managed as by the incomparable M. Malebranche".

4. (humanistic psychology) A phase in the therapeutic process in which feelings dominate over understanding, in which the client seems to relive emotions and to lack clarity.
   • 1981, Raymond J. Corsini, Handbook of Innovative Psychotherapies, page 353:

     If a parturiency is more disturbing and doesn't quickly return to nascence, the therapist may wish to indicate this to the client with some brief statement, such as "I'm feeling grumpy about something and I don't quite know what it is."

   • 1990, Germain Lietaer, Jan Rombauts, Richard Balen, Client-centered and Experiential Psychotherapy in the Nineties:

     This highlights the necessity for the therapist to be alert for signs of parturiency, since if one is distracted or inattentive, one may miss these "doorways to feelings."

   • 1998, Godfrey T Barrett-Lennard, Carl Rogers' Helping System: Journey & Substance, page 280:

     Each utterance was scored on all three phase types. Sequential graphs showed that pregnancy scores predominated initially, parturiency oscillated in low profile but with one pronounced spike, and nascency scores rose in the second quarter, and held this higher level.