Word of the Day Archive
Sunday April 25, 2004
gravid \GRAV-id\
, adjective:
Being with child; heavy with young or eggs; pregnant.
For the moment the Cap'n Toby lies at rest outside the harbor, and the twelve-inch mackerels that Brian and I are cutting up for lobster bait are ripe, their bellies gravid with either blood-red roe or milt the color of sailors' bones.
-- Richard Adams Carey, Against the Tide
In North America, in contrast, the British conquered an empire; New France disappeared from history. But -- Anderson's profound theme -- Britain's triumph was gravid with defeat.
-- Jack Beatty, "Defeat in Victory", The Atlantic, December 2000
she is a bored society matron who seduces him before a carload gravid with already weary, now grossed-out morning commuters.
-- Rita Kempley, review of The Adjuster (MGM/UA Studios movie), Washington Post, June 29, 1992
Gravid derives from Latin gravidus, from gravis, "heavy."
Dictionary.com Entry and Pronunciation for gravid
