trächtige

Trächtige is a German adjective meaning pregnant. It describes a person or animal that is carrying offspring. The term is common in veterinary, agricultural, and medical contexts, but it also appears in everyday language when referring to pregnancy in humans. The corresponding noun is Trächtigkeit, which denotes the state or period of being pregnant.

In modern German, trächtig follows standard adjective inflection rules. Before a feminine singular noun in the indefinite sense, one says eine trächtige Frau. With definite articles or in plural phrases, you find die trächtige Frau or die trächtigen Kühe. In plural without a definite article, the form is trächtige Tiere. Predicatively, the adjective remains trächtig: Die Kuh ist trächtig, or Die Kühe sind trächtig.

Etymology and related terms: The word is part of standard High German and has historical usage dating back to earlier stages of the language. The noun form Trächtigkeit is commonly used to refer to pregnancy as a state or condition. A common everyday synonym for pregnancy is Schwangersein, though schwanger is more general and less technical than trächtig, which is often found in medical, veterinary, or formal writing.

Notes on usage: Trächtig is most typical when describing animals, livestock, or medical cases, but it is also used for humans in formal or clinical contexts. It is less common in casual speech compared with the everyday word schwanger. The term is generally neutral in tone and is not associated with any negative or positive connotations beyond the state of pregnancy itself.