Entry Word: birth

Function: noun

Meaning: 1 the act or instance of being born <biology class will be showing a movie of the birth of kittens>

Synonyms nativity

Related Words creation, genesis, origination, rise; bearing, childbearing, labor, parturition; begetting, breeding, fathering, generation, mothering, reproduction, siring, spawning; fatherhood, maternity, motherhood, parenthood, paternity

Near Antonyms abortion, miscarriage

2 the line of ancestors from whom a person is descended <a man of noble birth> — see ancestry
3 the point at which something begins <that 12-second flight by Orville Wright marked the birth of aviation> — see beginning