| The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language: Fourth Edition. 2000. |
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| pregnant1 |
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| SYLLABICATION: | preg·nant |
| PRONUNCIATION: |  pr g n nt |
| ADJECTIVE: | 1. Carrying developing offspring within the body. 2a. Weighty or significant; full of meaning: a conversation occasionally punctuated by pregnant pauses. b. Of great or potentially great import, implication, or moment: “It was a politically pregnant time in Poland” (New York). 3. Filled or fraught; replete: “This was, from the Party's point of view, both deplorable in itself and pregnant with danger for the future” (Robert Conquest). 4. Having a profusion of ideas; creative or inventive. 5. Producing results; fruitful: a pregnant decision. | | ETYMOLOGY: | Middle English, from Old French, from Latin praegn ns, praegnant-, variant of praegns. See gen- in Appendix I. | | OTHER FORMS: | pregnant·ly —ADVERB
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| The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition. Copyright © 2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Published by the Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved. |
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