spawn

• POS: Noun, Verb (usu participle)

CIDE DICTIONARY

spawn, v. t. [OE. spanen, OF. espandre, properly, to shed, spread, L. expandere to spread out. See Expand.].

•  To produce or deposit (eggs), as fishes or frogs do.  [1913 Webster]
•  To bring forth; to generate; -- used in contempt.  [1913 Webster]

  "One edition [of books] spawneth another."  [1913 Webster]

spawn, v. i. 

•  To deposit eggs, as fish or frogs do.  [1913 Webster]
•  To issue, as offspring; -- used contemptuously.  [1913 Webster]

spawn, n. [Spawn, v. t.].

•  The ova, or eggs, of fishes, oysters, and other aquatic animals.  [1913 Webster]
•  Any product or offspring; -- used contemptuously.  [1913 Webster]
•  The buds or branches produced from underground stems.  [1913 Webster]
•  The white fibrous matter forming the matrix from which fungi.  [1913 Webster]

Spawn eater (Zoöl.), a small American cyprinoid fish (Notropis Hudsonius) allied to the dace.

OXFORD DICTIONARY

spawn, v. & n.
--v.
1 a tr. (also absol.) (of a fish, frog, mollusc, or crustacean) produce (eggs). b intr. be produced as eggs or young.
2 tr. derog. (of people) produce (offspring).
3 tr. produce or generate, esp. in large numbers.
--n.
1 the eggs of fish, frogs, etc.
2 derog. human or other offspring.
3 a white fibrous matter from which fungi are produced; mycelium.

Derivative

spawner n.

Etymology

ME f. AF espaundre shed roe, OF espandre EXPAND

THESAURUS

spawn

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

ROGET THESAURUS

spawn

Uncleanness

N uncleanness, impurity, immundity, immundicity, impurity, defilement, contamination, defoedation, soilure, soiliness, abomination, leaven, taint, tainture, fetor, decay, putrescence, putrefaction, corruption, mold, must, mildew, dry rot, mucor, rubigo, slovenry, slovenliness, squalor, dowdy, drab, slut, malkin, slattern, sloven, slammerkin, slammock, slummock, scrub, draggle-tail, mudlark, dust-man, sweep, beast, dirt, filth, soil, slop, dust, cobweb, flue, smoke, soot, smudge, smut, grit, grime, raff, sossle, sozzle, sordes, dregs, grounds, lees, argol, sediment, settlement heeltap, dross, drossiness, mother, precipitate, scoriae, ashes, cinders, recrement, slag, scum, froth, hogwash, ditchwater, dishwater, bilgewater, rinsings, cheeseparings, sweepings, offscourings, outscourings, off scum, caput mortuum, residuum, sprue, fecula, clinker, draff, scurf, scurfiness, exuviae, morphea, fur, furfur, dandruff, tartar, riffraff, vermin, louse, flea, bug, chinch, mud, mire, quagmire, alluvium, silt, sludge, slime, slush, slosh, sposh, spawn, offal, gurry, lientery, garbage, carrion, excreta, slough, peccant humor, pus, matter, suppuration, lienteria, faeces, feces, excrement, ordure, dung, crap, shit, sewage, sewerage, muck, coprolite, guano, manure, compost, dunghill, colluvies, mixen, midden, bog, laystall, sink, privy, jakes, toilet, john, head, cess, cesspool, sump, sough, cloaca, latrines, drain, sewer, common sewer, Cloacina, dust hole, sty, pigsty, lair, den, Augean stable, sink of corruption, slum, rookery, dirty, filthy, grimy, unclean, impure, soiled, not to be handled with kid gloves, dusty, snuffy, smutty, sooty, smoky, thick, turbid, dreggy, slimy, mussy, slovenly, untidy, messy, uncleanly, unkempt, sluttish, dowdy, draggle-tailed, uncombed, unscoured, unswept, unwiped, unwashed, unstrained, unpurified, squalid, lutose, slammocky, slummocky, sozzly, nasty, coarse, foul, offensive, abominable, beastly, reeky, reechy, fetid, decayed, moldy, musty, mildewed, rusty, moth-eaten, mucid, rancid, weak, bad, gone bad, etercoral, lentiginous, touched, fusty, effete, reasty, rotten, corrupt, tainted, high, flyblown, maggoty, putrid, putrefactive, putrescent, putrefied, saprogenic, saprogenous, purulent, carious, peccant, fecal, feculent, stercoraceous, excrementitious, scurfy, scurvy, impetiginous, gory, bloody, rotting, rotten as a pear, rotten as cheese, crapulous, gross, fimetarious, fimicolous, they that touch pitch will be defiled.

Posterity

N posterity, progeny, breed, issue, offspring, brood, litter, seed, farrow, spawn, spat, family, grandchildren, heirs, great-grandchild, child, son, daughter, butcha, bantling, scion, acrospire, plumule, shoot, sprout, olive-branch, sprit, branch, off-shoot, off- set, ramification, descendant, heir, heiress, heir-apparent, heir- presumptive, chip off the old block, heredity, rising generation, straight descent, sonship, line, lineage, filiation, primogeniture, filial, diphyletic, the child is father of the man, the fruit doesn't fall far from the tree, like father, like son.