Meaning & use
preterm
Last updated
Meanings
adjectivecomparablemedical
Describing a baby born, or a birth happening, earlier than about 37 weeks of pregnancy.
Grammar: Comes before a noun or after be: a preterm baby, the baby was preterm.
Patterns
- a preterm baby
- preterm birth
Preterm babies often need special care in the first weeks.
The doctor explained the risks of preterm labor.
She was born preterm and spent a month in the hospital.
nouncountablemedicalinformal
A baby born before the full length of pregnancy.
Grammar: Used mostly by professionals: the nurses cared for the preterms.
Patterns
- a preterm
The ward has room for twelve preterms.
Preterms need extra help with feeding.
Researchers followed preterms until school age.
Word forms
| plural | preterms |
|---|
Common combinations
- preterm birth
- Preterm birth can happen without warning.
- preterm baby
- The preterm baby was kept warm in an incubator.
- preterm labor
- She was admitted to the hospital with preterm labor.
- extremely preterm
- Extremely preterm infants need intensive care.
- preterm infant
- The study looked at each preterm infant's growth.
Synonyms and how they differ
- premature
- Premature is the everyday word and can also describe things that happen too early, unlike the narrower medical preterm.
- early
- Early is general, so it needs context to mean a birth before term.
- born early
- Born early is plain and gentle, while preterm is the official clinical label.
Opposites
Word family
Commonly confused: preterm or premature?
preterm vs premature
Premature is common in everyday speech and can describe any early event; preterm is specific to births.
Practice
A baby born at 33 weeks of pregnancy is described as ___.
Choose one answer.
Preterm means born before 37 weeks. Full-term and postterm refer to normal or late births, and overdue means late.
Make it your own
Write a sentence using “preterm”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.