stillborn

See also: still-born

English

Alternative forms

Etymology

First attested 1597, from English still +‎ born

Adjective

stillborn (not comparable)

  1. Dead at birth.
    Synonym: (dated, rare) deadborn
    Antonym: (archaic) quickborn
    • 1768, Horace Walpole, Historic Doubts on the Life and Reign of King Richard III:
      Queen Anne, before Elizabeth, bore a still-born son.
    • 1978, Holy Bible (New International Version), Job 3:16,
      Or why was I not hidden in the ground like a stillborn child, like an infant who never saw the light of day?
  2. (figuratively, by extension) Ignored, without influence, or unsuccessful from the outset; abortive.
    Synonym: unfruitful
    • 1859, Charles Reade, chapter 11, in Love Me Little, Love Me Long:
      This, gentlemen, is a list of the joint-stock companies created last year. . . . Of these some were stillborn, but the majority hold the market.
    • 1915, William MacLeod Raine, chapter 18, in The Highgrader:
      His lips framed themselves to whistle the first bars of a popular song, but the sound died stillborn.

Translations
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Noun

stillborn (plural stillborns)

  1. A baby that is born dead.
    • 2016, Alok Sharma, A Practical Guide to Third Trimester of Pregnancy & Puerperium:
      About 35% of stillborns are discovered to have major structural anomalies by chromosomal studies and autopsy findings.

Translations
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