maieutic（adj.）
"苏格拉底式的辅助一个人通过问题发现潜藏在他的头脑中的概念"，1650年代，源自希腊语 maieutikos，这是哲学中一个比喻用法，字面意思是"助产的"，来自 maieuesthai "担任接生婆"，源自 maia "接生婆"（参见 Maia）。
By putting leading questions on general or well-known facts, Socrates, by easy steps, to the surprise and delight of his subject, would bring him to the enunciation of some principle hitherto unknown or undeveloped in his mind. This is called his Maieutic: a term which Socrates himself suggested, likening his relation to the development and birth of ideas in the mind to that mid-wife office which his mother performed for the body. Both this feature and the illustration afforded fine material for jest to Aristophanes, who, in his usual comic way, proceeded to literalize the metaphor. [Samuel Ross Winans, "Xenophon's Memorabilia of Socrates," Boston: 1890]
苏格拉底通过对一般或众所周知的事实提出引导性问题，通过简单的步骤，令他的对象惊讶和愉悦，使他发现了他头脑中迄今为止未知或未开发的原则。这被称为他的助产术：苏格拉底本人提出了这个术语，将他与头脑中思想的发展和诞生的关系比作他母亲为身体所做的助产工作。这个特点和描绘为笑话的材料，对阿里斯托芬来说是很好的素材，他以他通常的喜剧方式，将这个隐喻具体化了。[塞缪尔·罗斯·维南斯，《苏格拉底的《忆苏录》》，波士顿：1890年]
该词起源时间：1650年代