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pregnancy test

pregnancy test

39 2.5
A test that shows if a woman is pregnant by checking urine or blood
  • noun
  • /ˈprɛɡnənsi tɛst/
translation icon : prueba de embarazo
  • Is that why you took that pregnancy test?
  • home pregnancy test
  • positive pregnancy test
  • pregnancy test results

Everyone knows about over the counter pregnancy tests, peeing on a stick.

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Examples

  • I took a home pregnancy test, and it said I was pregnant, so here we are.

  • And now Carrie remembered the pregnancy test, which sat on the kitchen table.

    Fiction book (2002)
  • So her blood pregnancy test was negative.

  • You see this second line on your pregnancy test and there you go.

  • When the result of the pregnancy test was positive, my whole world changed.

  • Well, I got three pregnancy test and they were all positive.

  • The pregnancy test was positive, but I made an appointment with my doctor to make sure.

  • I need a pregnancy test, and I've never bought one of those before.

  • On the way home, she stopped off at Eckerd's and bought a home pregnancy test.

    Fiction book (2002)
  • When the result of the pregnancy test was positive, my whole world changed.

Surface Forms

Morphology

pregnancy + test

The meaning 'a medical test to determine if a woman is pregnant' is directly and transparently derived from combining 'pregnancy' (the condition of having a developing fetus) with 'test' (an examination to check or determine something). This compound noun follows straightforward compositional and cross-linguistic patterns, so a B1 learner who knows both constituents would readily infer the meaning.

Etymology

Pregnancy test comes from a simple, everyday picture: a small medical check that tells if a woman is carrying a baby, often a paper strip that changes and shows lines when the answer is yes. So the words pregnancy, meaning 'having a baby', and test, meaning 'a check', come together to mean 'to find out if someone is pregnant'.