offspring
Americannoun
plural
offspring, offsprings-
children or young of a particular parent or progenitor.
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a child or animal in relation to the parent or parents.
-
a descendant.
-
descendants collectively.
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the product, result, or effect of something.
the offspring of an inventive mind.
noun
-
the immediate descendant or descendants of a person, animal, etc; progeny
-
a product, outcome, or result
Etymology
Origin of offspring
First recorded before 950; Middle English; Old English ofspring; off, of 1, spring (in the sense “to descend from”)
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
Malnourished and starving whales are also producing fewer offspring.
From Los Angeles Times
Conservationists at Virunga, which is a Unesco World Heritage Site, say her latest offspring represent a significant boost for efforts to protect the endangered species.
From BBC
Twenty-five-year-old Grace and her husband are set on staying child-free, resisting pressure from their parents and society to produce offspring, even as China strives to boost its flagging birth rate.
From Barron's
The trust can distribute assets to other beneficiaries such as offspring.
This enables the essential information defining an organism’s core features—represented in the nucleotide sequences of DNA—to be passed down to its offspring.
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
