From The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48 [gcide]:
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.
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2. To bring forth; to generate; -- used in contempt.
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One edition [of books] spawneth another. --Fuller.
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From The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48 [gcide]:
Spawn \Spawn\, v. i.
1. To deposit eggs, as fish or frogs do.
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2. To issue, as offspring; -- used contemptuously.
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From The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48 [gcide]:
Spawn \Spawn\, n. [[root]170. See {Spawn}, v. t.]
1. The ova, or eggs, of fishes, oysters, and other aquatic
animals.
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2. Any product or offspring; -- used contemptuously.
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3. (Hort.) The buds or branches produced from underground
stems.
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4. (Bot.) The white fibrous matter forming the matrix from
which fungi.
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{Spawn eater} (Zool.), a small American cyprinoid fish
({Notropis Hudsonius}) allied to the dace.
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From WordNet (r) 3.0 (2006) [wn]:
spawn
n 1: the mass of eggs deposited by fish or amphibians or
molluscs
v 1: call forth [syn: {engender}, {breed}, {spawn}]
2: lay spawn; "The salmon swims upstream to spawn"
From The Jargon File (version 4.4.7, 29 Dec 2003) [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}.
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