miscarriage

From mis- +‎ carriage.

• (UK) IPA^(key): /ˈmɪskaɹɪd͡ʒ/
• (US) IPA^(key): /ˈmɪs.kæɹ.əd͡ʒ/, /ˈmɪs.kɛɹ.əd͡ʒ/

• Audio (US)

  (file)

  (Mary–marry–merry merger)

miscarriage (countable and uncountable, plural miscarriages)

1. (now rare except in miscarriage of justice) A failure; a mistake or error. [from 16th c.]
   • 1590, Edmund Spenser, “Book III, Canto II”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC:

     for feare least blame / Of her miscarriage should in her be fond, / She wist not how t'amend, nor how it to withstond.

2. (medicine) The spontaneous natural termination of a pregnancy, especially before it is viable; the fatal expulsion of a foetus from the womb before term. [from 17th c.]

   Synonyms: pregnancy loss, spontaneous abortion

• The death of an infant during labour or after it has become viable is generally called a stillbirth.

• miscarriage on Wikipedia.Wikipedia
• Miscarriage in the Encyclopædia Britannica (11th edition, 1911)