Meaning of birth | Babel Free

Definitions

1. The process of childbearing; the beginning of life; the emergence of a human baby or other viviparous animal offspring from the mother's body into the environment
2. The process of childbearing; the beginning of life; the emergence of a human baby or other viviparous animal offspring from the mother's body into the environment.
   uncountable
3. Obsolete spelling of berth.
   alt-of, obsolete
4. An instance of childbirth
5. An instance of childbirth.
   countable
6. give birth to, a. to bear (a child).
7. A beginning or start; a point of origin
8. A beginning or start; a point of origin.
   countable
9. a form of divination by examining the embryonic sac or amniotic fluid.
10. The circumstances of one's background, ancestry, or upbringing
11. The circumstances of one's background, ancestry, or upbringing.
    uncountable
12. the spontaneous generation of an organism in an inorganic fluid medium. — autogenous, autogenic, autogonic, autogonous, adj. — autogenously, autogonously, adv.
13. That which is born
14. That which is born.
    countable, uncountable
15. the ability to produce two broods in a year. — digoneutic, adj.
16. the theory that embryonic development is totally controlled by the cell’s environment. Cf. syngenesis. — epigenesist, n. — epigenetic, adj.
17. development of an organism or form of animal life in which body segmentation is complete before hatching. — epimorphic, adj.
18. the development of a fetus; gestation.
19. Obsolete, birth; the process of generation.
    Obsolete,
20. pregnancy. — gravid, adj.
21. scientific study of the uterus.

Equivalents

Examples

“Intersex babies account for roughly one per cent of all births.”

“In Greece a child was given its name on the seventh or tenth day after birth.”

“the birth of an empire”

“He was of noble birth, but fortune had not favored him.”

“without reference to birth, but solely for their qualifications”

“Lucy […] had no fortune, which, though a minor evil, was an evil; and she had no birth, in the high-life sense of the word, which was a greater evil.”

“That poets are far rarer births than kings.”

“Others hatch their eggs and tend the birth till it is able to shift for itself.”

“He vvas a Surgeon, and they called him Doctor; but he vvas not employed in the Sloop as a Surgeon, but vvas going to Berbadoes to get a Birth, as the Sailors call it.”

“And vvhen he had ſhevvn me their birth (as he called it) I vvas filled vvith aſtoniſhment and horror.—VVe deſcended by divers ladders to a ſpace as dark as a dungeon, vvhich I underſtood vvas immerſed ſeveral feet under vvater, being immediately above the hold: I had no ſooner approached this diſmal gulph, than my noſe vvas ſaluted vvith an intolerable ſtench of putrified cheeſe, and rancid butter, […]”

“Tho' vve vvere again got near our harbour by three in the afternoon, yet it ſeemed to require a full hour or more, before vve could come to our former place of anchoring, or birth, as the captain called it.”

“[Y]ou have got a good vvarm birth here; but vve ſhall beat up your quarters. Here, Lucy, Moll, come to the fire, and dry your trumpery.”

“Passengers their births are clapt in, / Some to grumble, some to spew. / 'Hey day! call you that a cabin? / Why 'tis hardly three feet square; / Not enough to stow Queen Mab in— / Who the deuce can harbour there?'”

“[W]ith worldly wisdom, the first comer hastens to secure the best birth in the coach for himself, and to make the most convenient arrangement for his baggage before the arrival of his competitor.”

“"[…] She lays close to the Endymion, between her and the Cleopatra, just to the eastward of the sheer hulk." / "Ha!" cried William, "that's just where I should have put her myself. It's the best birth at Spithead.[…]"”

“The road was very narrow, with no opportunity of giving the apparent phantom what seamen call a wide birth.”

CEFR level