childing

noun

1. (archaic, form-of, gerund, uncountable)gerund of child: the act or process of childbearing or childbirth.

   “This Conſtantia was fiftie yeares of age before ſhe was conceiued with him; whom the emperor Henrie the ſixth to auoide all doubt and ſurmiſe that of hir conception and childing might be thought, and to the perill of the empire inſue: cauſed his regall tent to be pitched abrode in place where euery man might reſort.”

   “When Zalzer is grown up, and leaves the nest, the Simorg gives him one of her feathers, telling him, whenever he is in great distress, to burn it, and she will immediately come to his assistance. Zalzer marries Rodahver, who is likely to die in childing; he then burns the feather, and the Simorg appears and orders the Cæsarean operation to be performed.”

   “[H]e had grown up there and there wedded a wife; but that when she died in childing with her first bairn, and the bairn had not lived, he loathed the place, and came back again into the Dale.”

   “I only wish you had arrived this day past. For we had a feast in honor of my wife's childing and her father's visit. Your arrival would have given us even more to be glad for.”

adj

1. (archaic, not-comparable)Able to bear children; fertile; also, pregnant, or in the process of childbirth, or having just given birth to a child.

   “With fire and sword the country round / Was wasted far and wide, / And many a childing mother then, / And new-born baby died; / But things like that, you know, must be / At every famous victory.”

2. (archaic, not-comparable)Of a flowering plant: producing younger florets around an older flower.
3. (figuratively, not-comparable, obsolete)Fruitful; productive.

   “The Spring, the Sommer, / The childing Autumne, angry Winter change / Their wonted Liueries; and the mazed worlde, / By their increaſe, now knowes not which is which; […]”

verb

1. (form-of, gerund, participle, present)present participle and gerund of child