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
Was it possible that my relentless travel had caused me to miscarry — and in a country where I knew women sometimes faced withering criticism and blame for poor pregnancy outcomes?
From Salon ● Dec. 3, 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
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
Once the life is established, can a mother insure a six-week fetus and collect if she miscarries?
From Washington Post ● May 17, 2019
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
Through his remissions, they pursued fertility treatments and rounds of IVF, but miscarried each time.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 7, 2026
In one case, a pregnant woman miscarried after becoming ill, the agency said.
From Los Angeles Times ● Nov. 5, 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
And it could have meant more barriers to care when she miscarried during a subsequent pregnancy and ended up turning to an online pharmacy after one in Austin delayed filling her prescription.
From Slate ● May 21, 2025
She’d nearly miscarried in the first trimester, and now that she was approaching twenty weeks, she was beginning to have contractions.
From "Educated" by Tara Westover
And data analyses by ProPublica showed that sepsis rates and blood transfusions spiked among miscarrying women after the ban went into effect — an indicator of dangerous delays in care across the state.
From Salon ● Apr. 20, 2026
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
But Anna Malnutt said she went back to work three days after miscarrying: "I just didn't really know how long was OK to take, and I felt like I needed to go back."
From BBC ● Jan. 14, 2025
This May, when Ryan Hamilton’s wife was bleeding while miscarrying at 13 weeks, the first doctor they saw at Surepoint Emergency Center Stephenville noted no fetal cardiac activity and ordered misoprostol, according to medical records.
From Salon ● Nov. 25, 2024
The first cause, mother, of my coming Was for mankind miscarrying, To save them sore I sought; Therefore, mother make no mourning Since mankind, through my dying, May thus to bliss be brought.
From "Everyman," with other interludes, including eight miracle plays by Rhys, Ernest
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.
