Forms: 5–6 spawne, spaune, 6 spaume, spane, 7 spaen, 7– spawn. [f. SPAWN v.]
† 1. The milt of a fish. Obs.
c. 1430. Two Cookery-bks., 14. Take … þe lyuer an þe Spaune, an sethe it y-now in fayre Water. Ibid. (c. 1450), 90. Take a Gurnard … (the lyuer and þe Spawne with-in him).
2. The minute eggs of fishes and various other oviparous animals (chiefly aquatic or amphibian), usually extruded in large numbers and forming a more or less coherent or gelatinous mass; also, the young brood hatched from such eggs, while still in an early stage of development.
1491. Act 7. Hen. VII., c. 9. Grete multitude of Spawne and broode of all maner fysshes of the See.
1538. Leland, Itin. (1769), V. 70. A Kinde of Weedes,… wherin the Spaune hath Socur, and also the greate Fische.
1545. Elyot, Anguilla, a fyshe called an eele, whiche … cometh without generacion or spawne.
1570. Levins, Manip., 44. Ye spaune of fishe, fatus, auxumæ.
1600. Dallam, in Early Voy. Levant (Hakluyt Soc.), 95. This day we saw greate store of the spane of whales, whearof they make spermacetie.
1656. Ridgley, Pract. Physick, 325. Anoint it with the spawn of red Snails.
a. 1676. Hale, Prim. Orig. Man., IV. v. (1677), 338. The Semina or Spawn of Insects.
1710. Tatler, No. 236, ¶ 5. He filled several Barrels with the choicest Spawn of Frogs.
1731. Gentl. Mag., I. 12/1. The first Appearance of them is in a sort of Spawn, spread over the Cabbage-leaves.
1744. Goldsm., Nat. Hist., IV. 31. Oysters usually cast their spawn in May.
1833. L. Ritchie, Wand. by Loire, 191. Eels are also plentiful; and their spawn, while ascending the river…, are caught in vast quantities.
1845. Budd, Dis. Liver, 400. It is remarkable, too, that their excrement and spawn should not have set up disease in the substance of the liver.
1888. Goode, Amer. Fishes, 27. The European Bass are said to deposit their spawn near the mouths of rivers.
transf. 1555. Eden, Decades (Arb.), 142. Whether perles bee … the byrthe or spaune of there intrals.
1608. Topsell, Serpents (1653), 594. They bite to cleanse their teeth from all spawn and spume of venom.
b. With a and pl. A fish-egg; an undeveloped fish.
1563. B. Googe, Eglogs (Arb.), 105. But Pikes haue Spawnes good stoore in euery Pound.
1584. B. R., trans. Herodotus, II. 93. These male fishe … shed theyr seede by the way, which their femals … deuour, and thereof shortly after breede theyr spawnes.
1610. Fletcher, Faithf. Sheph., III. Bare-foot may no Neighbour wade … When the spawns on stones do lye, To wash their Hemp, and spoil the Fry.
1611. Florio, Alace, a meate made of spaunes of fishes.
3. A brood; a numerous offspring. Chiefly fig.
1590. Spenser, F. Q., I. i. 22. She poured forth … Her fruitfull cursed spawne of serpents small.
1600. Lane, Tom Tel-troth, 127. Bearing a spawne of many new-bred sinnes.
1619[?]. S. Hieron, Wks., II. 473. Such … are … not only suffered to remayne within, but to encrease also, so that there is euen a fresh spawne of such euery day.
a. 1740. Waterland, Def. Ld. Bp. St. David’s, Wks. 1823, VI. 282. Its effects and consequences … are plainly a spawn of all vices and villanies, a deluge of all mischiefs and outrages upon the earth.
4. fig. A person contemptuously regarded as the offspring of some parent or stock, or as imbued with some quality or principle. In early use freq. with a and pl.
1589. Nashe, Pasquill & Marf., 16. They are the very Spawnes of the fish Sæpia.
1589. ? Lyly, Pappe w. Hatchet (1844), 16. Whie are not the spawnes of such a dog-fish hangd?
a. 1627. Middleton, Witch, I. ii. (1885), V. 378. Here’s a spawn or two Of that same paddock-brood.
1667. Dryden & Dk. Newcastle, Sir M. Mar-all, IV. (1668), 49. Thou Spawn of the old Serpent, fruitful in nothing but in Lyes!
1706. E. Ward, Wooden World Diss. (1708), 67. The Gunner Is commonly a Spawn of the Captain’s own Projection.
1817. Southey, Wat Tyler, III. i. This is that old seditious heretic…. And here the young spawn of rebellion; My orders ar’n’t to spare him.
1844. Lever, T. Burke, II. 164. There was a cry … to have the child executed also, and many called out that the spawn would be a serpent one day.
1865. Kingsley, Herew., i. ‘Oh, apostate!’ cries the bell-wether, ‘oh, spawn of Beelzebub!’
b. Similarly in collective use.
1601. B. Jonson, Poetaster, Prol. How ere that common spawne of ignorance, Our frie of writers, may beslime his fame.
1625. Fletcher & Shirley, Night-Walker, III. The Goblins, Haggs, and the black spawn of darkness, Cannot fright me.
1698. Fryer, Acc. E. India & P., 83. They are worse Brokers than Jews; if they be not the Spawn of them, the Rechabites, that would drink no Wine.
1729. Gay, Polly, II. xxvii. You ne’er were drawn … Among the spawn Who practice the frauds of courts.
1737. [S. Berington], G. di Lucca’s Mem. (1738), 117. Other Northern Nations, who have … overrun the Face of Europe; leaving a Mixture of their Spawn in all Parts of it.
1852. R. S. Hawker, in C. E. Byles, Life, xiv. (1905), 228. The wretched Heretics, the spawn of that miscreant John Wesley.
1895. Rider Haggard, Heart of World, xvii. The vengeance of generations [might be] accomplished upon the spawn of the Spaniard.
5. fig. A product, result or effect of something.
1624. Donne, Serm., Wks. 1839, V. 331. The Spawns of Leviathan, the Seed of Sin,… reign most in that part of the body.
1646. J. Hall, Horæ Vac., 45. Libels are her spawns.
1673. Cave, Prim. Chr., I. v. 12. The result and spawn of lying fame.
a. 1770. Jortin, Serm. (1771), V. xiii. 282. Atheism … is the annual spawn and the natural effect of the gross superstitions … of the Romish church.
1789. Belsham, Ess., xxv. II. 17. If this hypothesis be a spawn of the Oriental philosophy, it ought to be rejected.
1857. Maurice, Mor. & Met. Philos., IV. ix. § 35. 558. In the sentimental spawn which was produced from him.
1869. Ruskin, Q. of Air, i. 59. The many monstrous and misbegotten fantasies which are the spawn of modern licence.
6. fig. The source or origin of something.
a. 1591. H. Smith, Wks. (1867), II. 273. It is called, ‘The root of all evil,’… as if we would say, the spawn of all sin.
1607. Hieron, Wks., I. 331. Both haue in them the root and seed and (as it were) the spawne and beginning of euery euill.
1650. Hubbert, Pill Formality, 220. In their birth lies the spawne of all evil.
1667. Waterhouse, Fire Lond., 35. The Primitive Martyrs, which were the Churches Spawn.
7. The mycelium of mushrooms or other fungi.
1731. Miller, Gard. Dict., s.v., Mushrooms, A Bed thus manag’d, if the Spawn takes kindly, will … produce great Quantities of Mushrooms.
1763. Mills, Syst. Pract. Husb., IV. 187. This seed, or rather this spawn … should be kept very dry till it is used.
1824. Loudon, Encycl. Gard. (ed. 2), § 3406. Spawn is a white fibrous substance, running like broken threads, in such dry reduced dung, or other nidus, as is fitted to nourish it.
1845. Florist Jrnl., 126. The spawn being thus provided, the next consideration is the preparation of the dung, and the making of the bed.
1867. H. Macmillan, Bible Teach., vi. (1870), 112. The spawn of the mushrooms … both consume putrescent organized matter, and manure the land.
8. attrib. and Comb., as spawn-box, -deposit, -feathered adj.; spawn-brick, a brick-shaped mass of compost containing mushroom-spawn; spawn-eater, -pike, U.S. (see quots. 1881–4); † spawn-stone, oolite, roe-stone.
1641. Day, Parl. Bees., V. The greater number of spawn-feathered bees Fly low like kites.
1668. Charleton, Onomast., 252. Ammonites,… Lesser Spawn-stone.
c. 1820. in Loudon, Encycl. Gard. (1824), § 3413. I shall next give directions how to form spawn-bricks.
1853. Zoologist, XV. 4040. I have also seen young toads, though I never noticed any spawn-deposits.
1862. H. Marryat, Year in Sweden, II. 420. Here in the greenhouse are spawn-boxes, over which pours a thread of running water.
1881. Cassell’s Nat. Hist., V. 131. The Spawn-eater, or Smelt (Leuciscuis hudsonicus), is a silvery fish … about three inches long, and occurs in Lake Superior.
1884. Goode, Nat. Hist. Aquat. Anim., 421. At Vermillion, Ohio, there is caught, early in the spring, what is termed the ‘Spawn Pike.’
