Middle English: probably from the obsolete preposition mid 'with' + wife (in the archaic sense 'woman'), expressing the sense 'a woman who is with (the mother').

• The original sense of midwife seems to have been ‘a woman who is with the mother’. Mid- here is not connected to middle, but is an old word meaning ‘with’ that is related to Greek meta ‘with’, which appears in English words beginning meta-, such as metabolism (late 19th century), metaphorical (mid 16th century), and metaphysics (mid 16th century). ‘A woman’ (rather than ‘a married woman’) is the oldest sense of wife, still used in Scotland.