obstetrician
Americannoun
noun
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
Etymology
Origin of obstetrician
First recorded in 1820–30; from Latin obstetrīci(a) “midwifery” (noun use of feminine of obstetrīcius ) + -an; see origin at obstetric
Explanation
If you were born in the United States, probably the first doctor you ever laid eyes on was an obstetrician, a medical doctor who delivers babies. In many parts of the world, it’s more likely that a midwife would welcome you into the world. But even though an obstetrician is a medical doctor and can be male or female, the name goes back to the Latin word for midwife, obstetrix, the woman who "stands in front [of the woman having the baby]." Obstetricians are often called “O.B.,” for short, and an O.B. who also treats diseases of the female reproductive system is called an “O.B.-G.Y.N.,” “obstetrician-gynecologist.”
Vocabulary lists containing obstetrician
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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:
Yet because of their uncommon family structure, it wasn’t until just minutes before the obstetrician cut into her belly that the father of her child got permission to go with her into the operating room.
From Los Angeles Times ● Apr. 25, 2026
Her father, Nils Bothén, was a gynecologist and obstetrician.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Mar. 19, 2026
May said midwifery staffing had improved and the trust was committed to increase obstetrician staffing.
From BBC ● Mar. 4, 2026
Throughout her first pregnancy, Wang Yifan had lots of questions, which she usually put to renowned obstetrician Duan Tao -- or rather, an AI clone of the top Shanghai-based doctor.
From Barron's ● Mar. 3, 2026
Wait six months, the obstetrician recommended; let your body recover.
From "Little Fires Everywhere" by Celeste Ng
But that stuff doesn’t make her a fertility doctor, or even a scientist who has contributed meaningfully to the evidence base that obstetricians like me use in our work.
From Slate ● Apr. 16, 2026
Professional societies representing obstetricians continue to say pregnant women should use acetaminophen to treat pain and fever.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 25, 2025
In consultation with Gemmill and more than a dozen other maternal health researchers and obstetricians, ProPublica built a framework for analyzing Texas hospital discharge data from 2017 to 2023, the most recent full year available.
From Salon ● Feb. 21, 2025
Dr McCormack said senior paediatricians had called a "very unusual" 07:30 meeting with obstetricians and senior neonatal nursing staff in response to the triplet deaths.
From BBC ● Oct. 8, 2024
Does this mean that fat obstetricians deliver babies that have one set of personality characteristics, and skinny ones deliver babies that have quite different characteristics?
From "Innumeracy: Mathematical Illiteracy and Its Consequences" by John Allen Paulos
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.
