10 Old-Timey Ways to Say You’re Pregnant

When it comes to euphemisms for pregnancy, you’re probably familiar with eating for two and a bun in the oven. Here are 10 colorful alternatives from history.

1. Apron-up
2. Child-great
3. Eating dried apples
4. Gravid
5. In an interesting situation
6. In pod
7. In the pudding club
8. In the spud line
9. Knit
10. The rabbit died

Apron-up

Partridge’s slang dictionary explains apron-up, meaning “pregnant,” as a nod to women wearing aprons to obscure their pregnancies. Green’s slang dictionary points out that it might also reference “the inevitable raising of the apron’s profile” as the baby grows.

Child-great

The great of child-great, which hit print in the early 1600s, is a reference to size rather than quality. As the Oxford English Dictionary puts it, “big with child.”

You Might Also Like ...

• 30 Excellent Terms From a 17th-Century Slang Dictionary
• 77 Delightful Victorian Slang Terms You Should Be Using
• 83 Old Slang Phrases We Should Bring Back

Eating dried apples

If someone’s eating dried apples, they’re either literally eating dried apples—or they’re pregnant. The expression, which dates back to 19th-century America, recalls how “dried fruit swells up when placed in water,” according to Green’s slang dictionary. You can also say someone’s “eating pumpkin seeds.”

Gravid

Gravid, a word for “pregnant” dating back to the late 16th century, has roots in gravis, Latin for “burdened” or “heavy.” (Grave in the “serious” sense is also derived from gravis.) Gravid’s offshoots include primigravid, meaning “pregnant for the first time”; multigravid, “pregnant not for the first time”; and nulligravid, “never having been pregnant.”

In an interesting situation

Whenever Charles Dickens says a woman is “in an interesting situation,” he means she’s pregnant. The expression cropped up around the mid-1700s, and popular variants included in an interesting condition and in an interesting state.

In pod

In pod has been in play since the late 19th century. It works on its own as a synonym of pregnant, but you could also say that someone was “put in pod” or “put into pod” in the same way you’d say they “got knocked up.” Here’s a variation of that usage in a dirty old limerick printed in a 1927 compilation:

“There was a young man of Cape Cod,
Who once put my wife into pod;
His name it was Tucker,
The dirty old ****er,
The bugger, the blighter, the sod.”

You Might Also Like ...

• 11 Rare Old Words for the Heinous and Villainous
• 35 Creative Slang Terms for Death From the Past 600 Years
• 19 Old-Timey Ways to Call B.S.

In the pudding club

In the pudding club—sometimes shortened to in the club—is an old British way to reference pregnancy that probably came about because a pregnant belly is round like a traditional British pudding. The phrase never really caught on across the pond, maybe because Americans’ custard-like version of pudding doesn’t fit the metaphor. (But a bun in the oven works just fine.)

In the spud line

The origins of in the spud line, which cropped up in the 20th century, are unclear. But it seems plausible that it’s of a piece with in the pudding club and a bun in the oven—basically, you’re awaiting a round item. (People have used spud as slang for “potato” since the 19th century.)

Knit

Knit, which dates back to the early 1600s, evidently has nothing to do with knitting baby clothes. In fact, we’re not even sure it involved humans very often or at all: The OED’s only two citations for the term both concern animals. A 1603 citation describes a seabird “knit with egge,” and one from 1750 mentions a “knit” doe.

You Might Also Like ...

• 12 Terrible Pieces of Advice for Pregnant People
• Why Is It Called “Morning Sickness” If It Can Last All Day?
  
• The Chainsaw Was Invented to Assist With Difficult Childbirths

The rabbit died

The rabbit died, meaning whoever you’re talking about is pregnant, was inspired by a 20th-century pregnancy test that involved injecting the possibly pregnant person’s urine into a juvenile rabbit (or mouse or rat) and checking for changes to the animal’s ovaries. The presiding scientist killed the rabbit in order to examine its organs, so the expression actually makes no sense; i.e., the rabbit died even if you weren’t pregnant.