false pregnancy
1
5.6
- noun
- /fɔls ˈprɛgnənsi/
- Specialized
:
embarazo psicológico
- In a case of false pregnancy, the woman may experience nausea and missed periods despite not being pregnant.
I had miscarried, I had cancer, had a false pregnancy, couldn't conceive a baby.
- I had miscarried, I had cancer, had a false pregnancy, couldn't conceive a baby.
Examples
-
Heartbroken and grieving, Mary considers her false pregnancy to be God's punishment for her having tolerated heretics in her realm.
-
That plus a false pregnancy scare.
Fiction book (2000) -
Sense of false pregnancy.
-
It was a rare but not unknown malaise, a false pregnancy.
Fiction book (1995) -
I had miscarried, I had cancer, had a false pregnancy, couldn't conceive a baby.
-
In a case of false pregnancy, no baby will be seen on the ultrasound, and there won't be any heartbeat.
Blog text (9) -
The doctor explained that a false pregnancy can cause physical symptoms that resemble those of actual pregnancy.
-
After several negative tests, she learned that her symptoms were due to false pregnancy, not an actual pregnancy.
Synonyms
1
9.9
A health problem where a woman shows signs of pregnancy but is not pregnant
Surface Forms
Morphology
The meaning is directly compositional: 'false' (not real) combined with 'pregnancy' (state of carrying a fetus) yields a pregnancy that is not actually present. This adjective+noun pattern is straightforward and cross-linguistically common, so a B1 learner who knows both words can infer the MWE's meaning.
Etymology
False pregnancy comes from a simple picture: the word false means 'not real' and pregnancy means 'carrying a baby', so it describes a woman who looks pregnant but is not. That's why false pregnancy means showing pregnancy symptoms without an actual baby.