birth

Meanings

1. 1
   noun

   The time when a baby is born or comes out of its mother.

   They celebrated the birth of their first child.

2. 2
   noun

   The beginning or start of something.

   The 1960s saw the birth of a new kind of music.

3. 3
   noun

   The family or social class a person comes from.

   He was a man of noble birth.

4. 4
   verb

   To give birth to a baby or young animal.

   The dog birthed two healthy puppies.

Common collocations

• multiple birth Adjective + noun
• given birth Verb + noun

Etymology tree Proto-Indo-European *bʰer- Proto-Indo-European *-tis Proto-Indo-European *bʰértisder. Proto-Germanic *burþiz Old Norse burðrbor. Middle English birthe English birth From Middle English birthe (1250), from earlier burthe, burde, from Old Norse burðr, byrd (Old Swedish byrth, Swedish börd), replacing Old English ġebyrd (rare variant byrþ), equivalent to bear + -th (thus a piecewise doublet of berth). The Old Norse is from Proto-Germanic *burdiz (compare Old Frisian berde, berd); Old English ġebyrd is from prefixed *gaburþiz (compare Dutch geboorte, German Geburt), from Proto-Indo-…

Topics

External links

• Cambridge Dictionary
• Wiktionary
• Google Images