Adjacent Words

Birth definitions

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Webster's 1828 Dictionary

BIRTH, n. berth. [L. partus, the participle of pario, to bear.]
1. The act of coming into life, or of being born. Except in poetry, it is generally applied to human beings; as the birth of a son.
2. Lineage; extraction; descent; as, Grecian birth.
It is used of high or low extraction; but is often used by way of distinction for a descent from noble or honorable parents and ancestors; as a man of birth.
3. The condition in which a person is born.
A foe by birth to Troy.
4. That which is born; that which is produced, whether animal or vegetable.
5. The act of bringing forth; as, she had two children at a birth.
6. In a theological sense, regeneration is called the new birth.
7. Origin; beginning; as the birth of an empire.
BIRTH,BERTH, n. A station in which a ship rider. [See Berth.]

WordNet (r) 3.0 (2005)

n
1: the time when something begins (especially life); "they divorced after the birth of the child"; "his election signaled the birth of a new age" [ant: death, demise, dying]
2: the event of being born; "they celebrated the birth of their first child" [syn: birth, nativity, nascency, nascence] [ant: death, decease, expiry]
3: the process of giving birth [syn: parturition, birth, giving birth, birthing]
4: the kinship relation of an offspring to the parents [syn: parentage, birth]
5: a baby born; an offspring; "the overall rate of incidence of Down's syndrome is one in every 800 births" v
1: cause to be born; "My wife had twins yesterday!" [syn: give birth, deliver, bear, birth, have]

Merriam Webster's

I. noun Usage: often attributive Etymology: Middle English, from Old Norse byrth; akin to Old English beran Date: 13th century 1. a. the emergence of a new individual from the body of its parent b. the act or process of bringing forth young from the womb 2. a state resulting from being born especially at a particular time or place <a Southerner by birth> 3. a. lineage, extraction <marriage between equals in birth> b. high or noble birth 4. a. archaic one that is born b. beginning, start <the birth of an idea> II. verb Date: 1855 transitive verb 1. chiefly dialect to bring forth 2. a. to give rise to ; originate b. to give birth to intransitive verb to bring forth or be brought forth as a child or young III. adjective Date: 1975 biological 3 <his birth mother>

Oxford Reference Dictionary

n. & v. --n. 1 the emergence of a (usu. fully developed) infant or other young from the body of its mother. 2 rhet. the beginning or coming into existence of something (the birth of civilization; the birth of socialism). 3 a origin, descent, ancestry (of noble birth). b high or noble birth; inherited position. --v.tr. US colloq. 1 to give birth to. 2 to assist (a woman) to give birth. Phrases and idioms: birth certificate an official document identifying a person by name, place, date of birth, and parentage. birth control the control of the number of children one conceives, esp. by contraception. birth pill the contraceptive pill. birth rate the number of live births per thousand of population per year. give birth bear a child etc. give birth to 1 produce (young) from the womb. 2 cause to begin, found. Etymology: ME f. ON byrth f. Gmc: see BEAR(1), -TH(2)

Webster's 1913 Dictionary

Berth Berth, n. [From the root of bear to produce, like birth nativity. See Birth.] [Also written birth.] 1. (Naut.) (a) Convenient sea room. (b) A room in which a number of the officers or ship's company mess and reside. (c) The place where a ship lies when she is at anchor, or at a wharf. 2. An allotted place; an appointment; situation or employment. ``He has a good berth.'' --Totten. 3. A place in a ship to sleep in; a long box or shelf on the side of a cabin or stateroom, or of a railway car, for sleeping in. Berth deck, the deck next below the lower gun deck. --Ham. Nav. Encyc. To give (the land or any object) a wide berth, to keep at a distance from it.

Webster's 1913 Dictionary

Birth Birth (b[~e]rth), n. [OE. burth, birth, AS. beor[edt], gebyrd, fr. beran to bear, bring forth; akin to D. geboorte, OHG. burt, giburt, G. geburt, Icel. bur[eth]r, Skr. bhrti bearing, supporting; cf. Ir. & Gael. beirthe born, brought forth. [root]92. See 1st Bear, and cf. Berth.] 1. The act or fact of coming into life, or of being born; -- generally applied to human beings; as, the birth of a son. 2. Lineage; extraction; descent; sometimes, high birth; noble extraction. Elected without reference to birth, but solely for qualifications. --Prescott. 3. The condition to which a person is born; natural state or position; inherited disposition or tendency. A foe by birth to Troy's unhappy name. --Dryden. 4. The act of bringing forth; as, she had two children at a birth. ``At her next birth.'' --Milton. 5. That which is born; that which is produced, whether animal or vegetable. Poets are far rarer births than kings. --B. Jonson. Others hatch their eggs and tend the birth till it is able to shift for itself. --Addison. 6. Origin; beginning; as, the birth of an empire. New birth (Theol.), regeneration, or the commencement of a religious life. Syn: Parentage; extraction; lineage; race; family.

Webster's 1913 Dictionary

Birth Birth, n. See Berth. [Obs.] --De Foe.

Collin's Cobuild Dictionary

(births) Frequency: The word is one of the 3000 most common words in English. 1. When a baby is born, you refer to this event as his or her birth. It was the birth of his grandchildren which gave him greatest pleasure... She weighed 5lb 7oz at birth. ...premature births. N-VAR 2. You can refer to the beginning or origin of something as its birth. ...the birth of popular democracy. N-UNCOUNT: with poss 3. Some people talk about a person's birth when they are referring to the social position of the person's family. ...men of low birth... His birth, background and career show that you can make it in this country on merit alone. N-UNCOUNT: usu supp N 4. see also date of birth, home birth 5. If, for example, you are French by birth, you are French because your parents are French, or because you were born in France. Sadrudin was an Iranian by birth. PHRASE: adj/n PHR 6. When a woman gives birth, she produces a baby from her body. She's just given birth to a baby girl... PHRASE: V inflects 7. To give birth to something such as an idea means to cause it to start to exist. In 1980, strikes at the Lenin shipyards gave birth to the Solidarity trade union. PHRASE: V inflects 8. The country, town, or village of your birth is the place where you were born. PHRASE: n PHR

Easton's Bible Dictionary

As soon as a child was born it was washed, and rubbed with salt (Ezek. 16:4), and then swathed with bandages (Job 38:9; Luke 2:7, 12). A Hebrew mother remained forty days in seclusion after the birth of a son, and after the birth of a daughter double that number of days. At the close of that period she entered into the tabernacle or temple and offered up a sacrifice of purification (Lev. 12:1-8; Luke 2:22). A son was circumcised on the eighth day after his birth, being thereby consecrated to God (Gen. 17:10-12; comp. Rom. 4:11). Seasons of misfortune are likened to the pains of a woman in travail, and seasons of prosperity to the joy that succeeds child-birth (Isa. 13:8; Jer. 4:31; John 16:21, 22). The natural birth is referred to as the emblem of the new birth (John 3:3-8; Gal. 6:15; Titus 3:5, etc.).

International Standard Bible Encyclopedia

burth (genesis):

(1) It was said by the angel beforehand of John the Baptist, "Many shall rejoice at his birth"; and when he was born Elisabeth said, "Thus hath the Lord done unto me .... to take away my reproach among men" (Lu 1:14,25). Among the ancient Hebrews barrenness was a "reproach" and the birth of a child, of a son especially, an occasion for rejoicing.

(2) This, no doubt, was due in part to the Messianic hope inspired and sustained by prophecy (see Ge 3:15, where it was foretold that the seed of the woman should bruise the serpent's head; and subsequent prophecies too numerous to mention). Cases in point worth studying are found in Ge 4:1, where Eve rejoices over the birth of her firstborn and cries, "I have gotten a man with the help of Yahweh"; and 1Sa 1:20, where Hannah exults over her firstborn, calling his name "Samuel," "because," she says, "I have asked him of Yahweh."

(3) The marvelous passage in Isa 7:14, "Behold, a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel," must have intensified the longing and hope of every devout Jewish maiden to be a mother, if mayhap, under God, she might be the mother of Messiah--Immanuel! (Compare Mt 1:22,23; Lu 1:13 f.)

See JESUS CHRIST; VIRGIN BIRTH.

George B. Eager

Soule's Dictionary of English Synonyms

n. 1. Nativity, coming into life, origin, beginning, rise. 2. Lineage, extraction, descent, race, family, line, ancestry, blood. 3. Offspring, progeny, creation, creature, production, being.

Foolish Dictionary

An aid to life, discovered by Woman. Higher preferred. (See BERTH)

Moby Thesaurus

Altmann theory, DNA, De Vries theory, Galtonian theory, Mendelianism, Mendelism, RNA, Verworn theory, Weismann theory, Weismannism, Wiesner theory, abiogenesis, abortion, accouchement, affiliation, allele, allelomorph, ancestry, animal spirits, animate existence, animation, apparentation, archigenesis, aristocracy, aristocraticalness, babyhood, bear, bearing, beget, beginning, beginnings, being alive, biogenesis, birth throes, birthing, blastogenesis, blessed event, blood, bloodline, blue blood, branch, breed, bring to birth, character, childbearing, childbed, childbirth, childhood, chromatid, chromatin, chromosome, commencement, common ancestry, confinement, consanguinity, cradle, creation, dawn, dawning, delivery, derivation, descent, determinant, determiner, development, diathesis, digenesis, direct line, distaff side, distinction, emergence, endowment, engender, epigenesis, eugenics, eumerogenesis, existence, extraction, factor, family, father, female line, filiation, freshman year, gene, generation, genesiology, genesis, genetic code, genetics, genteelness, gentility, give birth to, giving birth, hatching, having a baby, having life, hereditability, heredity, heritability, heritage, heterogenesis, histogenesis, homogenesis, honorable descent, house, immortality, inborn capacity, inception, inchoation, incipience, incipiency, incunabula, infancy, inheritability, inheritance, isogenesis, labor, life, lifetime, line, line of descent, lineage, liveliness, living, long life, longevity, male line, matrocliny, merogenesis, metagenesis, miscarriage, monogenesis, mother, multiparity, nascence, nascency, nativity, nobility, noble birth, nobleness, onset, opening, origin, origination, orthogenesis, outset, outstart, pangenesis, parentage, parthenogenesis, parturition, patrocliny, pharmacogenetics, phylum, pregnancy, procreate, procreation, quality, race, rank, recessive character, replication, royalty, seed, sept, side, sire, slip, spear side, spindle side, spontaneous generation, spriteliness, start, stem, stirps, stock, strain, succession, sword side, the Nativity, the stork, travail, viability, vitality, vivacity, youth