spawn

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"
    

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]
    

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]
    

Spawn \Spawn\, v. i.
   1. To deposit eggs, as fish or frogs do.
      [1913 Webster]

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

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}.
    

spawn

   <operating system> 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)
    

71 Moby Thesaurus words for "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