SPAWN
What does "SPAWN" mean?
To produce or release eggs, especially of fish and amphibians; to give rise to something.
Meanings
- To release or deposit eggs, as fish, frogs, or molluscs do. Salmon return upriver to spawn in the gravel where they hatched.
- To produce, generate, or give rise to something. The viral clip spawned a hundred imitations overnight.
- In computing or gaming, to create a new process, or to appear at a start point. The enemy will spawn near the bridge if you linger. technical
- The eggs of fish, frogs, or similar animals, often as a mass. Clouds of frog spawn filled the shallow pond by April.
Did you know?
- A large female cod can spawn several million eggs in a single season, betting on overwhelming numbers because only a tiny fraction will ever survive to adulthood.
Word origin
From Anglo-French 'espaundre' (to shed roe), from Latin 'expandere' (to spread out); the egg sense came first, with the computing sense borrowed in the 20th century.
Remember it
SPAWN sits inside 'sPAWN': picture a fish laying eggs that scatter like pawns across a board.
A little poem
Salmon climb the falls
to die where they first drew breath-
the river repays.
haiku
Wordplay
- The programmer and the salmon both spawn, but only one of them does it to debug the next generation.
What it teaches
Some creatures stake everything on volume, trusting that a few of many thousands will make it through.
Quick facts
What does SPAWN mean?
To produce or release eggs, especially of fish and amphibians; to give rise to something.
Is SPAWN a valid word?
Yes — SPAWN is one of the answer words in Wordul, the daily word game.
How many letters is SPAWN?
SPAWN has 5 letters and 1 syllable.
Where does SPAWN come from?
From Anglo-French 'espaundre' (to shed roe), from Latin 'expandere' (to spread out); the egg sense came first, with the computing sense borrowed in the 20th century.
What can SPAWN teach us?
Some creatures stake everything on volume, trusting that a few of many thousands will make it through.
How players do
Be the first to solve it.