A Topical Dictionary: Search for spawn

Dictionary Results For "spawn" [?]/[OPML]

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English

Etymology

from spawne, spawnen, from :w:Anglo-Norman|Anglo-Norman espaundre, from {{term|expandere||lang=la|stretch out or spread out}}.

Pronunciation

Rhymes: Rhymes:English:-ɔːn|-ɔːn

Verb

To deposit eggs in water, as fish.
To reproduce, especially in large numbers.
To produce (eggs) in great number.
To bring into being, especially in very large numbers
To bring forth non-mammalian beings.

Derived terms

respawn

Noun

The fertilized eggs of aquatic organisms
offspring

de:spawn fa:spawn io:spawn kk:spawn fi:spawn ta:spawn te:spawn vi:spawn

GNU Project's publication of CIDE, the Collaborative International Dictionary of English Spawn \Spawn\, n. [[root]170. See Spawn, v. t.]
1. The ova, or eggs, of fishes, oysters, and other aquatic
animals.
[1913 Webster]

2. Any product or offspring; -- used contemptuously.
[1913 Webster]

3. (Hort.) The buds or branches produced from underground
stems.
[1913 Webster]

4. (Bot.) The white fibrous matter forming the matrix from
which fungi.
[1913 Webster]

Spawn eater (Zool.), a small American cyprinoid fish
(Notropis Hudsonius) allied to the dace.
[1913 Webster]

GNU Project's publication of CIDE, the Collaborative International Dictionary of English Spawn \Spawn\, v. t. [imp. & p. p. Spawned; p. pr. & vb. n.
Spawning.] [OE. spanen, OF. espandre, properly, to shed,
spread, L. expandere to spread out. See Expand.]
1. To produce or deposit (eggs), as fishes or frogs do.
[1913 Webster]

2. To bring forth; to generate; -- used in contempt.
[1913 Webster]

One edition [of books] spawneth another. --Fuller.
[1913 Webster]

GNU Project's publication of CIDE, the Collaborative International Dictionary of English Spawn \Spawn\, v. i.
1. To deposit eggs, as fish or frogs do.
[1913 Webster]

2. To issue, as offspring; -- used contemptuously.
[1913 Webster]

WordNet spawn
n : the mass of eggs deposited by fish or amphibians or molluscs
v 1: call forth [syn: engender, breed]
2: lay spawn; "The salmon swims upstream to spawn"

Moby Dictionary
albumen , bear , beget , breed , bring about , bring forth ,
bring into being , brood , call into being , cause , caviar , clutch ,
coin , conceive , concoct , contrive , cook up , create , deposit ,
design , develop , devise , discover , dream up , drop , egg , egg white ,
eggshell , engender , evolve , fabricate , farrow , father , fish eggs ,
frame , fry , generate , get , give being to , give birth to ,
give rise to , glair , hatch , improvise , invent , lay , litter , make ,
make do with , make up , mature , mint , nest , originate , ovule ,
parent , plan , procreate , produce , roe , sire , spat , strike out ,
think out , think up , vitellus , white , yellow , yield , yolk , young

Jargon spawn n.,vi. 1. [techspeak] In Unix parlance, to create a child process
from within a process. Technically this is a `fork'; the term `spawn' is
a bit more general and is used for threads (lightweight processes) as
well as traditional heavyweight processes. 2. In gaming, meant to
indicate where (`spawn-point') and when a player comes to life (or
`re-spawns') after being killed. Opposite of frag.

FOLDOC spawn

To create a child process in a
multitasking operating system. E.g. Unix's fork
system call or one of the spawn() library routines provided
by most MS-DOS, Novell NetWare and OS/2 C compilers -
spawnl(), spawnle(), etc.

(1995-03-28)