spaw13 (spal)

[A contr. of spattle1.] Saliva or spittle thrown out carele ly; slaver. The new-born infant from the cradle takes, And first of spittle she lustration makes; Then in the spawl her middle finger dips, Anoints the temples, forehead, and the lips. Dryden, tr. of Persius's Satires, ii. spaw13 (spal), v. i. [Formerly also spall; There was such spitting and spalling , as though they had been half choked. Harrington's Apology (1596). ( Nares .) In disgrace, To spit and spawl upon his sunbright face. Quarles , Emblems, iii. 2. Why must he sputter, spawl , and slaver it? Swift . spawld, n. A Scotch variant of spald2 for spall2 . spawn (spân), v. [Early mod. E. spaune ; spawnen , spanen, espandir , shed, spill, pour out, spawn, same as espanir , blow, bloom as a flower, lit. expand, F. épandre , spread, = It. spandere , spill, scatter, shed, L. expand ere , spread out, shed abroad: see expand . Cf. span nish ing .] I. trans . To produce or lay (eggs): said of a female fish, and by extension of other animals; hence, to generate. It is sometimes applied, in contempt, to human beings. What practices such principles as these may spawn, when they are laid out to the sun, you may determine. Swift. II. in trans. 1. To produce or lay eggs of the kinds called spawn , as a fish, frog, mollusk, or crustacean; by extension, to produce offspring: said of other animals, and, in contempt, of human beings. The Trout usually spawns about October or November. I. Walton, Complete Angler, p. 75. 2. To i ue, as the eggs or young of a fish: by extension applied to other animals, and to human beings, in contempt. The beguiling charms of distinctions and magnificent subtleties have spawned into prodigious monsters, and the birth of error. Evelyn, True Religion, II. 176. It is so ill a quality, and the mother of so many ill ones that spawn from it, that a child should be brought up in the greatest abhorrence of it. Locke . spawn (spân), n. and a. [Early mod. E. spaune; varies much, and is sometimes prodigiously great: thus, it has been estimated that the spawn of a single codfish may contain several million eggs. In oviparous fishes the eggs are spawned directly into the water, fecundated as they flow out, or afterward, by the milt of the male, and left to hatch by themselves. Fish-spawn is also easily procured by the proce of stripping the female, and artificially fecundated by the same proce applied to the male, the spawn and milt being mixed together in the water of a ve el made for the purpose. In ovoviviparous fishes the spawn is impregnated in the body of the female, as is usual with the eggs of higher animals. Frogs and toads lay a quantity of spawn consisting of a jelly-like ma in which the eggs are embedded, and it is fertilized as it flows forth. Some shell-fish extrude spawn in firm gelatinous ma es, as the common sea-snail, Natica heros. (See sand - saucer.) The ma of eggs (called coral or berry ) that a lobster carries under her tail is the spawn or roe of that crustacean; and in various other crustaceans and the is carried to hatching in special some fishes tapos stimp, which are sometimes in the male instead of the female, as in the sea-horse (see Hippocampidæ ). Anadromous fishes are those which leave the sea and run up rivers to spawn; a few fishes are catadromous, or the converse of this. The name spawn is seldom or never given to the eggs of scaly reptiles, birds, or mammals; but the term has sometimes included milt. See spawning. 2. The spat of the oyster, from the time of the discharge of the egg until the shell is visible and the creature has become attached.-3. Offspring of fish; very small fish; fry.-4. Howe'er that common spawn of ignorance, Our fry of writers, may beslime his fame. B. Jonson, Poetaster, Ind. IMG:content-1661.png:[graphic] 5. In bot., the mycelium of fungi; the white fibrous matter forming the matrix from which fungi are produced. Certain species of edible fungi, as Agaric us campestris, are propagated artificially by sowing the spawn in prepared beds of horse-droppings and sand. By this time these will be one ma of natural spawn , having a grey mouldy and thready appearance, and a smell like that of mushrooms. Cooke and Berkeley , Fungi, p. 257. The agarics have an abundant mycelium, known to gardeners as the spawn , consisting of white, cottony filaments, which spread in every direction through the soil. Amer . Cyc ., XII. 70. To shoot spawn. See shoot. II. a . Containing spawn; spawning, or about to spawn; ripe, as a fish. spawn-brick (spân ́brik), n . In bot . , brick shaped ma es of mold or compre ed horse droppings fermented with mushroom-spawn, and used for the artificial sowing or stocking of a mushroom-bed. The [mushroom-Jbed will be ready for spawning, which consists of inserting small pieces of spawn bricks into the sloping sides of the bed, about 6 inches asunder. Encyc. Brit ., XII. 284.