offspring
Americannoun
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offspring,
plural
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offsprings
plural
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children or young of a particular parent or progenitor.
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a child or animal in relation to the parent or parents.
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a descendant.
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descendants collectively.
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the product, result, or effect of something.
the offspring of an inventive mind.
noun
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the immediate descendant or descendants of a person, animal, etc; progeny
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a product, outcome, or result
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
Etymology
Origin of offspring
First recorded before 950; Middle English; Old English ofspring; see off, of 1, spring (in the sense “to descend from”)
Explanation
Puppies are the offspring, or children, of a mamma dog. You're the offspring of your biological parents. This is basically another word for children. Baby horses, gorillas, lizards, and humans are all offspring. A woman who gives birth to quadruplets suddenly has a lot of offspring. But this word isn't limited to biological creations — you could say that a project you've been laboring over is your offspring. Albert Einstein's offspring included many groundbreaking theories, and the scientists who followed up on Einstein's ideas are considered his intellectual offspring.
Vocabulary lists containing offspring
It's All in the Family
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Christmas Carol Vocab: A Lyrical Lexicon
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"The Origin of Species by Natural Selection" by Charles Darwin: Essential Words
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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.
See Examples For:
Who wants to contemplate our technological offspring ending our existence?
From Salon ● Sep. 18, 2026
In an unprecedented display of extended parenting, the two white-tailed parents skipped a year's breeding season to continue to tend for their year-old offspring.
From BBC ● Sep. 4, 2026
Billed as a sequel series premiering Sept. 24, a Wayne offspring is our anchor for the freshman class at Hillman College, the show’s fictional historically Black college based in Virginia.
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 1, 2026
Foo said he doesn’t know how many years the orange-winged cicadas need to spend underground—he estimated between two and six—meaning next year’s bugs may be the offspring of adults from several years prior.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 30, 2026
This adapted feature would then be transmitted to the finch’s offspring by instruction, and their beaks would harden as well, having been pre-adapted to the harder seeds by their parents.
From "The Gene" by Siddhartha Mukherjee
It sticks out like a sore thumb among the Camden Yards offsprings that followed.
From Washington Times ● Feb. 16, 2023
Internal fertilization leads to more genetic variations and increases the survival rates of offsprings.
From Textbooks ● Jun. 9, 2022
Aristotle came to this thought when he observed that hares often gave birth to litters which comprised sets of healthy and imperfect offsprings.
From Scientific American ● Apr. 27, 2011
Toys R Us' "Fabulous 15" top picks includes Monster High dolls, offsprings to famous monster characters, and Hasbro's Cuponk, a game that challenges players to master ball-and-cup tricks using a wall.
From Reuters ● Sep. 21, 2010
You are right, Paul," said the orator—"or offsprings.
From The Astonishing History of Troy Town by Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
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.
