Spawning

How to spell spawning

8 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce spawning

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does spawning mean?

1. verbThe act of fish, frogs, or other aquatic animals releasing or depositing eggs.
2. verbProducing or giving rise to something, often rapidly or in large numbers.

Spawning in a sentence

• The salmon return to the same river for spawning each autumn.

• The policy is spawning a wave of new businesses across the region.

• Warmer water can disrupt the spawning of native trout.

• The original film kept spawning sequels for over a decade.

Where does spawning come from?

Language of origin: French

The base word 'spawn' arrived in English in the 1400s from the Anglo-Norman and Old French verb 'espandre', meaning 'to spread out' or 'to pour forth', which itself descends from the Latin 'expandere', a compound of 'ex-' (out) and 'pandere' (to spread or stretch). The original image was of fish releasing eggs that spread across the water, so 'spawn' came to mean the shedding of eggs and the mass of eggs itself. Over time the verb broadened figuratively to describe anything that is produced in great numbers or that gives rise to something new. Adding the '-ing' ending forms the present participle and gerund, and because the root ends in a single consonant after a vowel sound, no doubling occurs: it stays 'spawning', not 'spawnning'. The same Latin 'pandere' lies behind the more obviously related word 'expand', a useful reminder of the spreading sense at its heart.

How the word is built

• spawn (to shed or produce eggs)
• -ing (present participle / gerund suffix)