habitual abortion
- noun
- /həˈbɪtʃuəl əˈbɔːrʃən/
- Specialized
:
aborto habitual
- After three consecutive pregnancies ended in habitual abortion, the couple sought medical advice.
Examples
-
Doctors monitor women with a history of habitual abortion for underlying health conditions.
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Research into the causes of habitual abortion is ongoing in the field of reproductive medicine.
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She suffered from habitual abortion for several years.
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Many women experience habitual abortions without any known cause.
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After three consecutive pregnancies ended in habitual abortion, the couple sought medical advice.
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Doctors monitor women with a history of habitual abortion for underlying health conditions.
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Many women experience habitual abortion without any known cause.
How Frequent
- Specialized
- Specialized
68
5.8
Surface Forms
Morphology
The phrase is a straightforward adjective+noun composition: 'habitual' (repeated/regular) + 'abortion' (termination of pregnancy), so its basic meaning of repeated abortions is directly derivable from the constituents. While there is a clinical nuance (in medical contexts it often refers to recurrent spontaneous miscarriage rather than elective terminations), the overall sense of repeated occurrence is transparent to learners who know both words.
Etymology
Habitual abortion is a medical term that joins habitual, meaning 'happening often', and abortion, meaning 'a miscarriage' or when a pregnancy ends on its own. So the phrase describes the condition of having repeated miscarriages.