miscarry
Americanverb (used without object)
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miscarries,
present (3rd person singular)
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miscarried,
past participle, past
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miscarrying
present participle
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to have a miscarriage of a fetus.
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to fail to attain the right or desired end; be unsuccessful.
The plan miscarried.
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to go astray or be lost in transit, as a letter.
verb
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to expel a fetus prematurely from the womb; abort
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to fail
all her plans miscarried
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(of freight, mail, etc) to fail to reach a destination
Other Word Forms
Inflected Forms
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
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miscarrysimple
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miscarriessimple
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have miscarriedperfect
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has miscarriedperfect
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am miscarryingprogressive
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are miscarryingprogressive
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is miscarryingprogressive
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have been miscarryingperfect progressive
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has been miscarryingperfect progressive
Past
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miscarriedsimple
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had miscarriedperfect
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was miscarryingprogressive
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were miscarryingprogressive
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had been miscarryingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of miscarry
First recorded in 1275–1325, miscarry is from the Middle English word miscarien. See mis- 1, carry
Vocabulary lists containing miscarry
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
Lisa, 34, told her husband: "We're not waiting another year. We need to be pregnant and miscarry as soon as we possibly can."
From BBC ● Apr. 28, 2026
Known as Oropouche virus, it can trigger a fever that may cause pregnant people to miscarry or their babies to have birth defects known as microcephaly, or smaller than usual heads.
From Salon ● Mar. 20, 2025
Up to one in four women who know they are pregnant will miscarry, according to the National Library of Medicine.
From Los Angeles Times ● Apr. 25, 2024
“A lot of people successfully miscarry on their own, but that can take a couple months,” Loren said in an interview.
From Seattle Times ● Feb. 5, 2024
Even with the arrows gone they fared little better, for Athena had now come to take a part in the great deeds being done and she made each attempt to reach Odysseus miscarry.
From "Mythology: Timeless Tales of Gods and Heroes" by Edith Hamilton
Like my husband, many men experience sadness, grief, stress, anxiety, and depression after their partner miscarries.
From Washington Post ● Jul. 2, 2021
If someone miscarries at home, the onus is on them to collect a clean sample of the tissue and take it to their hospital within 24 hours.
From The Guardian ● May 5, 2020
Is a woman who miscarries early responsible for fishing her small, sometimes hard-to-identify embryo out of a blood-filled toilet bowl before flushing?
From New York Times ● Jan. 5, 2019
When your pregnancy miscarries and you have to head straight back into working 80-hour weeks or lose your livelihood, that’s a personal violation.
From Salon ● Aug. 21, 2015
"It is spoken with understanding and foresight. But how do I draw back my arm if all this miscarries?"
From "The Horse and His Boy" by C.S. Lewis
Owens has maintained, online and in court testimony, that she was pregnant and later miscarried.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 16, 2026
When the couple asked if their daughter, who they had nicknamed Ladybird, would have survived, a doctor told them: "Well, you could have miscarried anyway."
From BBC ● Jun. 24, 2026
One of the women, she recalled, was about four months pregnant when she miscarried twins.
From Los Angeles Times ● Dec. 3, 2025
Eventually, she began to see brown discharge and was taken to an off-site hospital where, days later, health care providers confirmed she had miscarried.
From Salon ● Oct. 22, 2025
I learned this only after I mentioned that I’d miscarried to a couple of friends, who responded by heaping me with love and support and also their own miscarriage stories.
From "Becoming" by Michelle Obama
Most disturbing of all, women who were actively miscarrying, an already physically painful and emotionally shattering experience, said they were ignored entirely by facility staff.
From Slate ● Dec. 8, 2025
As she was miscarrying and bleeding profusely, she said physicians didn’t explain that she had options for care.
From Salon ● Jul. 2, 2025
"I was not prepared for the shock of miscarrying at work during my first pregnancy," she said.
From BBC ● Jan. 14, 2025
Patients who are miscarrying still don’t know what to expect from Houston Methodist.
From Salon ● Nov. 25, 2024
Some trouble at-Court for fear of the Queene's miscarrying; she being, as they all conclude, far gone with child. 12th.
From The Diary of Samuel Pepys by Richard Griffin, Baron Braybrooke
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
