SPAWN

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

IPA (US):

 Dictionary entry overview: What does spawn mean? 

• SPAWN (noun)
  The noun SPAWN has 1 sense:

1. the mass of eggs deposited by fish or amphibians or molluscs

  Familiarity information: SPAWN used as a noun is very rare.

• SPAWN (verb)
  The verb SPAWN has 2 senses:

1. call forth

2. lay spawn

  Familiarity information: SPAWN used as a verb is rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• SPAWN (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

The mass of eggs deposited by fish or amphibians or molluscs

Classified under:

Nouns denoting animals

Hypernyms ("spawn" is a kind of...):

egg (animal reproductive body consisting of an ovum or embryo together with nutritive and protective envelopes; especially the thin-shelled reproductive body laid by e.g. female birds)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "spawn"):

roe (the egg mass or spawn of certain crustaceans such as the lobster)

• SPAWN (verb)

Present simple: I / you / we / they spawn    ... he / she / it spawns   
Past simple: spawned   
Past participle: spawned   
-ing form: spawning   

Sense 1

Meaning:

Call forth

Classified under:

Verbs of sewing, baking, painting, performing

Synonyms:

breed; engender; spawn

Hypernyms (to "spawn" is one way to...):

cause; do; make (give rise to; cause to happen or occur, not always intentionally)

Sentence frames:

Somebody ----s something
Something ----s something

Sense 2

Meaning:

Lay spawn

Classified under:

Verbs of grooming, dressing and bodily care

Context example:

The salmon swims upstream to spawn

Hypernyms (to "spawn" is one way to...):

lay (lay eggs)

Troponyms (each of the following is one way to "spawn"):

spat (spawn)

Sentence frame:

Something ----s

Derivation:

spawner (a female fish at spawning time)

 Context examples 

"Yes, I know the spawn—complacently pecking at him for his Father Damien letter, analyzing him, weighing him—"

(Martin Eden, by Jack London)

Hurricanes and tropical storms can also spawn tornadoes and lead to flooding.

(Hurricanes, Federal Emergency Management Agency)

“If adults retain this ability, it would help them with migration between feeding and spawning areas.”

(North Atlantic haddock use magnetic compass to guide them, National Science Foundation)

“Why shrink from us, then, as though we were the spawn of the Evil One?”

(The White Company, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

The mutation that spawned the Hartley Hairless Guinea Pig was then re-derived at Charles River to restore thymus function while maintaining hairlessness.

(Hartley Albino Hairless Guinea Pig, NCI Thesaurus)

On Earth, worms and clams that live in the muddy sea beds require 1 mg per liter, bottom feeders such as crabs and oysters 3 mg per liter, and spawning migratory fish 6 mg per liter, all within 0.2 moles per cubic meter, 6.4 mg per liter.

(Simple animals could live in Martian brines, Wikinews)

They would sometimes alight upon my victuals, and leave their loathsome excrement, or spawn behind, which to me was very visible, though not to the natives of that country, whose large optics were not so acute as mine, in viewing smaller objects.

(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)

Glass eels then enter estuaries, where they continue their migration upstream to freshwater until later in life (up to age 50), when, as silver eels, they navigate back to the Sargasso Sea to spawn and die.

(Study uncovers magnetic memory of European glass eels, National Science Foundation)

Out of the plentiful spawn of life she flung from her prolific hand she selected only the best.

(Martin Eden, by Jack London)