birth

1 the act or instance of being born <almost from birth, he showed all the marks of future greatness> Synonyms geniture, nativity Related Words creation, genesis, nascency, origination, rise; accouchement, bearing, childbearing, labor, parturition; begetting, breeding, fathering, generation, mothering, parenting, reproduction, siring, spawning; fatherhood, maternity, motherhood, parenthood, paternity Near Antonyms abortion, miscarriage; stillbirth

2 the line of ancestors from whom a person is descended <a man of noble birth> Synonyms ancestry, blood, bloodline, breeding, descent, extraction, family tree, genealogy, line, lineage, origin, parentage, pedigree, stock, strainRelated Words heredity, succession; family, house; kin, kindred, relations, relatives; raceNear Antonyms offspring; child, heir, inheritor, son, successorAntonyms issue, posterity, progeny, seed

3 the point at which something begins <that 12-second flight by Orville Wright marked the birth of aviation> Synonyms alpha, baseline, beginning, commencement, dawn, day one, genesis, get-go (also git-go), inception, incipience, incipiency, kickoff, launch, morning, nascence, nascency, onset, outset, start, thresholdRelated Words drawing board, first base, ground zero, square one; creation, founding, inauguration, initiation, institution, origination; cradle, fountain, fountainhead, germ, origin, root, seedbed, source, spring, well, wellspring; dawning, opening; advent, appearance, arrival, debut (also début), emergence; childhood, infancy, youthNear Antonyms cessation, closing, closure, completion, finale, finish, period, stop, termination, windupAntonyms close, conclusion, end, ending, omega

to bring forth from the womb <back in those days a woman her age would have birthed several children> Synonyms bear [chiefly dialect], deliver, drop, have, mother, produceRelated Words labor; breed, multiply, propagate, reproduce, spawn; beget, father, generate, get, sire; calve, kid, kindle, kitten, litter, pup, whelpNear Antonyms abort, lose, miscarry