[a. L. fētus (u stem) offspring (incorrectly written fœtus), f. root *fē- to produce offspring:—Aryan *bhwē-, an extension of root *bheu-, bhu-, to grow, come into being: see BE v.]
The etymologically preferable spelling with e in this word and its cognates is adopted as the standard form in some recent Dicts., but in actual use is almost unknown.
The young of viviparous animals in the womb, and of oviparous animals in the egg, when fully developed.
1398. Trevisa, Barth. De P. R., V. xlix. (1495), 167. The chylde that is conceyued in the moder hyght Fetus in latyn.
1594. T. B., La Primaud. Fr. Acad., II. 397. At this time the burthen is called Fœtus of the Latines, and Embryon of the Greekes, which is as much in our language as Sprouting or Budding.
1660. Boyle, New Exp. Phys. Mech., Digress 373. The Fœtus respires in the Womb.
1796. De Serra, in Phil. Trans., LXXXVI. 500. The gems as correspondent to living-born fœtuses.
1841–71. T. R. Jones, Anim. Kingd. (ed. 4), 867. Granting that the contents of the ovum are barely sufficient to nourish the embryo during the earliest stages of its development, we have yet to learn how the fœtus is matured after the exhaustion of this supply.
transf. 1692. Bentley, Boyle Lect., 142. There was an immense Variety of Ferments and Tumors and Excrescences of the Soil, pregnant and big with Fœtus’s of all imaginable shapes and structures of Body.
