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
-
(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
-
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:
At her 10-week appointment, she learned that her child had triploidy, a genetic condition where a fetus has three sets of chromosomes instead of two, and would miscarry late-term or die at birth.
From Salon ● Oct. 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
And staff who miscarry after six months will still be offered paid maternity leave.
From BBC ● Mar. 12, 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
When she nearly miscarries, he convinces her to marry him and move to his company’s sponsored enclave that’s popping with pregnant women like her.
From Salon ● Oct. 18, 2026
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
"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
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
But after a bleed early on, a test showed Rhiannon had miscarried at eight weeks.
From BBC ● Oct. 11, 2025
When Estella miscarried a third time, the doctor spelled the consequences out more plainly: “Another pregnancy could kill your wife.”
From "Out of Darkness" by Ashley Hope Pérez
It doesn’t capture what happened to miscarrying patients who were turned away from emergency rooms or those like Barnica who were made to wait, then discharged home before they returned with sepsis.
From Salon ● Feb. 21, 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
The standard of care is to offer miscarrying women a procedure to empty the uterus.
From Slate ● Nov. 5, 2024
There’s also Josseli Barnica, the 28-year-old mother of a toddler who went to the hospital miscarrying at 17 weeks pregnant.
From Slate ● Nov. 5, 2024
Besides this, in the event of the letter miscarrying, it cannot be returned if there be no surname attached to the signature.
From Frost's Laws and By-Laws of American Society A condensed but thorough treatise on etiquette and its usages in America, containing plain and reliable directions for deportment in every situation in life. by Sarah Annie Frost
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