spawn
/spɔːn/US/spɔn/
spawn verb: to produce or deposit (eggs) in water.
Verb
spawn (third-person singular simple present spawns, present participle spawning, simple past and past participle spawned)
- To produce or deposit (eggs) in water.
- A frog spawns thousands of tadpoles every year.
- To generate, bring into being, especially nonmammalian beings in very large numbers.
- To bring forth in general.
- The web server spawns a new process to handle each client's request.
- Weather Underground, a covert organization that spawned countless other would-be revolutionary cadres - the Symbionese Liberation Army (SLA), the Black Liberation Army, the May 19 Communist Organization each of which2005, McSweeney's Pub., LLC (publisher), The Believer, volume 3, numbers 1-5, page 26
- To induce (aquatic organisms) to spawn.
- To plant with fungal spawn.
- To deposit (numerous) eggs in water.
- Alewives are anadromous fish: Born in freshwater, they spend their lives in the ocean, returning annually to their birthplaces to spawn.2014 April 20, Richard Conniff, “An evolutionary family drama”, in The New York Times
- To reproduce, especially in large numbers.
- To appear, or cause (something or someone) to appear, spontaneously in a game world at a particular place and time.
- We put down torches to stop creepers from spawning.
- To appear, or cause (something or someone) to appear, unexpectedly and seemingly out of nowhere.
- Where did he come from? Bro just spawned in.
- Mavs fans really be spawning out of nowhere.2022 April 21, @BibsCorner, Twitter, archived from the original on 11 Mar 2024
- Of a person or non-egglaying animal: to be born.
- That kid just spawned and looks like he's already done with life.
- I spawned in Turkey. I wasn't given an option on difficulty. It was automatically set on the hardest.2021 April 16, u/crippl3r, “Life, the game!”, in Reddit, r/teenagers, archived from the original on 11 Mar 2024
Noun
spawn (countable and uncountable, plural spawn or spawns)
- The numerous eggs of an aquatic organism.
- Mushroom mycelium prepared for (aided) propagation.
- Any germ or seed, even a figurative source.
- This dreadful idea is the spawn of a large business conglomerate.
- Children; offspring.
- Even the blithely unselfconscious Homer is more than a little freaked out by West’s private reverie, and encourages his spawn to move slowly away without making eye contact with the crazy man.2012 June 3, Nathan Rabin, “TV: Review: THE SIMPSONS (CLASSIC): “Mr. Plow” (season 4, episode 9; originally aired 11/19/1992)”, in (Please provide the book title or journal name)
- The buds or branches produced from underground stems.
- Synonym of spawn point.
- Synonyms:
- spawn point
Proper noun capitalized: Spawn
Spawn
- A surname.
spawn meaning in Tamil, Urdu, Bengali and Malayalam
spawn in Tamil
- இனப்பெருக்கத் தாது, மீன் சினை, மீன் முட்டை, சின்ன முட்டை, வித்து
spawn in Urdu
- اطفال, نسل, پود
spawn in Bengali
- ডিম ছাড়া, জন্ম দেওয়া
spawn in Malayalam
- അണ്ഡൗഖം, മത്സ്യം മുട്ടയിടുക, പരിണമിക്കുക, ഫലിക്കുക, ഫേനാണ്ഡം, സന്താനം
More languagesFewer languages
- spawn in Kannada
- ಮೊಟ್ಟೆಗಳು, ಅಂಡಗಳು, ತತ್ತಿಗಳು, ಗೊಂಚಲುಮೊಟ್ಟೆ
- spawn in Odia
- ମଞ୍ଜି mañji
- spawn in Tagalog
- mamayabat
- spawn in Indonesian
- memijah, memijahkan, muncul
- spawn in Persian
- تخمریزی toxm-rizi, اشپل ešpel
Examples of spawn in a sentence
- So many virgos have spawned in my life lately2022 May 24, @ambarlucid, Twitter, archived from the original on 11 Mar 2024:
- I swear a new vtuber with 250,000 subscribers and wildly transphobic views just spawns every other fucking week2023 March 10, u/beskardboard, “rule”, in Reddit, r/196, archived from the original on 11 Mar 2024:
- rizz so strong the bf just spawned out of nowhere2023 March 22, @pickuplinesonig, Twitter, archived from the original on 11 Mar 2024:
- bro jus spawns in when the word cuck is mentioned2023 July 9, @upblissed, Twitter, archived from the original on 11 Mar 2024:
Synonyms of spawn
Forms of spawn
| Verb | |
|---|---|
| third-person singular present | spawns |
| present participle | spawning |
| past participle | spawned |
| past | spawned |
| Noun | |
| plural | spawn |
| plural | spawns |
Origin of spawn
Recorded since 1413; from Middle English spawnen, from Anglo-Norman espaundre, from Old French espandre, from Latin expandere (“stretch out; spread out”, verb). Doublet of expand. Compare also Middle English spalden, spolden, spawden (“to cut open (a fish)”).
From Middle English spawne, from the verb (see above).
Words formed from spawn
Phrases with spawn
Words that rhyme with spawn
Questions about spawn
- What does spawn mean?
- Spawn means to produce or deposit (eggs) in water.
- What is spawn in Tamil?
- Spawn in Tamil is இனப்பெருக்கத் தாது, மீன் சினை, மீன் முட்டை. See Spawn meaning in Tamil.
- How do you use spawn in a sentence?
- So many virgos have spawned in my life lately
- What part of speech is spawn?
- Spawn can be a verb, a noun or a proper noun.
- How do you pronounce spawn?
- Spawn is pronounced /spɔːn/ (UK).
- What is the past tense of spawn?
- The past tense of spawn is spawned.
Words near spawn in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: spawn (page history and authors); Spawn (page history and authors); spawn (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); spawn (Urdu Wiktionary) (page history and authors); spawn (Bengali Wiktionary) (page history and authors); spawn (Malayalam Wiktionary) (page history and authors); spawn (Kannada Wiktionary) (page history and authors); ମଞ୍ଜି (Odia) (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
Last updated:
Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-spawn.wav.
Cite this entry: “spawn.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/spawn. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.