puerperal fever

1. 1.

   serious form of septicemia contracted by a woman during childbirth or abortion (usually attributable to unsanitary conditions); formerly widespread but now uncommon

   Synonymschildbed fever

   Broaderblood poisoning

Questions about puerperal fever

What does puerperal fever mean?

puerperal fever means "serious form of septicemia contracted by a woman during childbirth or abortion (usually attributable to unsanitary conditions); formerly widespread but now uncommon".

What is another word for puerperal fever?

Close synonyms include childbed fever. Each sense on this page lists its own synonyms, because a word with several meanings rarely has one substitute that works for all of them.

Is puerperal fever a common word?

puerperal fever is banded "Rare" — specialist or archaic — most readers will not have met it. The band comes from how often the word appears in a large corpus of everyday English, not from an editor's impression.