birth

[ burth ]

/ bɜrθ /

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See synonyms for: birth / birthed / birthing on Thesaurus.com

noun

an act or instance of being born: the day of his birth.

the act or process of bearing or bringing forth offspring; childbirth; parturition: a difficult birth.

lineage; extraction; descent: of Grecian birth.

high or noble lineage: to be foolishly vain about one's birth.

natural heritage: a musician by birth.

any coming into existence; origin; beginning: the birth of Protestantism; the birth of an idea.

Archaic. something that is born.

verb (used with object) Chiefly South Midland and Southern U.S.

to give birth to.

to assist in giving birth; act as midwife for.

OTHER WORDS FOR birth

3 parentage, ancestry, line, blood, family.

6 start, commencement, inception, genesis; launching, inauguration.

See synonyms for birth on Thesaurus.com

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Idioms about birth

give birth to,

to bear (a child).
to initiate; originate: Her hobby gave birth to a successful business.

Origin of birth

1150–1200; Middle English byrthe<Scandinavian; compare Old Swedish byrth; cognate with Old English gebyrd,Old High German giburt,Gothic gabaurths

OTHER WORDS FROM birth

mul·ti·birth, noun

WORDS THAT MAY BE CONFUSED WITH birth

berth, birth

Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023

How to use birth in a sentence

She flies straight back to the US, gives birth, and gives the baby up for adoption.
The mind-boggling end of Susan Choi’s Trust Exercise, explained|Constance Grady|November 20, 2020|Vox
Unexpectedly, she gave birth in prison to Gallagher’s child.
‘The Woman Who Stole Vermeer’ revisits the strange tale of a British heiress who became a notorious art thief|Katharine Weber|November 20, 2020|Washington Post
One cool, sunny day before I could walk, I went missing in my great-aunt’s home, where my 20-year-old parents lived for the first few months after their elopement five months before my birth.
Eighty years of memories that will stir readers’ own|Connie Schultz|November 20, 2020|Washington Post
The biggest years for millennial births ranged from 1989 to 1993.
Not everyone is feeling the recovery: The economy as told by 8 charts|Lance Lambert|November 14, 2020|Fortune

According to John, although the implantation of an embryo into a surrogate often does not “take,” it did take in both cases for them resulting in the birth of their two sets of twins.
Husband’s tragic death leaves D.C. man to raise 4 young children alone|Lou Chibbaro Jr.|November 11, 2020|Washington Blade
But it will take more than superficial solidarity to dismantle those structures and the ideologies that birthed them.
Jamie Foxx: Get Over the Black ‘Annie’|Stereo Williams|December 20, 2014|DAILY BEAST
The housing bubble was at very the center of the financial crisis that birthed Dodd-Frank.
How Naive is Elizabeth Warren?|Nick Gillespie|December 18, 2014|DAILY BEAST
But birthed out of the annals of Reddit and onto heavily trafficked pop-culture sites, “Too Many Cooks” has become mainstream.
There Are More 'Too Many Cooks' Where That First Fever Dream Came From|Kevin Fallon|November 11, 2014|DAILY BEAST
In 2004, Amber birthed her alter ego, a stripteaser named Oosha Boom.
Best Career Arc Ever: From Burlesque To Bartending|Anne Berry|September 13, 2014|DAILY BEAST
The Big Brother TV show was birthed in 1999, Facebook in 2004, YouTube in 2005.
A ‘Truman Show’ For Today: The Return of Josh Harris|Anthony Haden-Guest|July 11, 2014|DAILY BEAST
I was birthed in storm, after battle, and my swaddling cloth was a wolfskin.
The Jacket (The Star-Rover)|Jack London
Like the race of man it loved its kind, and birthed and breast-nourished its young.
Jerry of the Islands|Jack London
And yet my perhaps sympathy for the girl was birthed by accident, not design on her part.
The Three Sapphires|W. A. Fraser

British Dictionary definitions for birth

birth

/ (bɜːθ) /

noun

the process of bearing young; parturition; childbirthRelated adjective: natal

the act or fact of being born; nativity

the coming into existence of something; origin

ancestry; lineageof high birth

noble ancestrya man of birth

natural or inherited talentan artist by birth

archaic the offspring or young born at a particular time or of a particular mother

give birth

to bear (offspring)
to produce, originate, or create (an idea, plan, etc)

verb (tr) rare

to bear or bring forth (a child)

Word Origin for birth

C12: from Old Norse byrth; related to Gothic gabaurths, Old Swedish byrdh, Old High German berd child; see bear 1, bairn

Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

Scientific definitions for birth

birth

[ bûrth ]

Noun

The emergence and separation of offspring from the body of its mother, seen in all mammals except monotremes.

Adjective

Present at birth, as a defect in a bodily structure.

Other Idioms and Phrases with birth

birth

see give birth to.

birth

OTHER WORDS FOR birth

Idioms about birth

Origin of birth

OTHER WORDS FROM birth

WORDS THAT MAY BE CONFUSED WITH birth

Words related to birth

How to use birth in a sentence

British Dictionary definitions for birth

Word Origin for birth

Scientific definitions for birth

Other Idioms and Phrases with birth