# Is there a single word, in any language (incl dead lang): 1kill/die in battle 2die in childbirth? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [February 27, 2014, 7:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-a-single-word-in-any-language-incl-dead-lang-1kill-die-in-battle-2die-in-childbirth/682438 "2014-02-27T19:05:39Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 4\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![septimus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/septimus/32/410_2.png) [@septimus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/septimus)\ **Post date:** [February 28, 2014, 3:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-a-single-word-in-any-language-incl-dead-lang-1kill-die-in-battle-2die-in-childbirth/682438/41 "2014-02-28T15:56:42Z")
Thai, a monosyllabic isolating language, has a 3-syllable phrase for “to die in childbirth” – but it’s three words. Anyway, the thread has taken a different turn which allows me to mention a pet peeve. _ **Text should be self-contained** without reference to title_. Good titles are fine, but supplemental. That’s usually not a big issue at SDMB, because the thread title is repeated in the text body. _In this case, however, OP made his question cryptic just to fit it into a restricted-length title_. (One of many annoyances long ago with Yahoo Mail is, after I finally figured out how to save a message, the title wasn’t saved with the message. Often the message’s meaning was then indiscernable if correspondent ignored above rule.) ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2014, 1:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-a-single-word-in-any-language-incl-dead-lang-1kill-die-in-battle-2die-in-childbirth/682438/42 "2014-03-01T01:36:39Z")
> [@Yllaria](#): > > Also stillborn. > > So no word in English to cover the mother, but one for the child. The Latin/Spanish/other-romance-languages word _nonato_ “unborn” means, among other things, a child whose mother died during birth or so shortly before that the child could be cesareaed out. I can’t come up with a single word for the mother, whether she’s died during the birth, before or of birth-fever. Spanish also uses _caídos_ (fallen) almost exclusively for people dead in battle. The almost is because it can also be used poetically, but then it’s understood to be a figure of speech: the literal meaning refers to dead from battle/war. ---
**Author:** ![Sam\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Sam\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sam_Stone)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2014, 1:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-a-single-word-in-any-language-incl-dead-lang-1kill-die-in-battle-2die-in-childbirth/682438/43 "2014-03-03T01:01:55Z")
Huh. I read the op as asking for a word which means that for every person killed in battle, two die in childbirth - if that’s a real statistic, which it probably isn’t. Clarity is your friend! ---
**Author:** ![Leo\_Bloom](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/leo_bloom/32/10377_2.png) [@Leo\_Bloom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leo_Bloom)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2014, 10:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-a-single-word-in-any-language-incl-dead-lang-1kill-die-in-battle-2die-in-childbirth/682438/44 "2014-03-03T22:26:25Z")
OP here, bloodied but unbowed. We’ve all had our fun now. I _can’t_ rewrite the OP, right? It was clear what I thought would be a good GQ–and still is–quite early in the thread. So sue me, I was trying to save bits and voltage, because I listen to Al Gore. Trust me, were I to have gotten wordy, it might’ve gotten ugly. See, that was a pretty complicated sentence, tense-ity-wise. Frankly, that two people thought that I was asking about a unified concept and correlation–and that even there might be such an expression or thought common enough among cultures–strikes me as funny, creative, interesting in itself as to written communication and it’s short hands, and a little weird also… The answers were nice. I still would like to hear some Latin or Greek people chime in on this. Leo [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-a-single-word-in-any-language-incl-dead-lang-1kill-die-in-battle-2die-in-childbirth/682438.md?page=2)