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s or opportunity offers; not regularly. Stewart. The one, Wolsey, directly his subject by birth; the other, his subject occasionally by his preferment. Fuller.

The first existence or beginning of anything; the birth. This mixed system of opinion and sentiment had its origin in the ancient chivalry. Burke.

Specifically, the throes or travail of childbirth. She bowed herself and travailed, for her pains came upon her. 1 Sam. iv. 19.

A new birth; a re-creation; a regeneration; a continued existence in different manner or form.

Kindred; family; birth. [Obs.] Ld. Berners. We claim to be of high parage. Chaucer.

ors; parents or ancestors considered with respect to their rank or character; extraction; birth; as, a man of noble parentage. "Wilt thou deny thy parentage" Shak. Though men esteem thee low of parentage. Milton.

The act of bringing forth, or being delivered of, young; the act of giving birth; delivery; childbirth.

Of, pertaining to, or appropriate to, a person of high birth; noble; not plebeian. Born in the patrician file of society. Sir W. Scott. His horse's hoofs wet with patrician blood. Addison.

The birth of nature. [R.] Coleridge.

ge which connects the fetus with the parent, and is cast off in parturition with the afterbirth.

t. I have overheard a plot of death. Shak. O, think what anxious moments pass between The birth of plots and their last fatal periods! Addison.

Producing several young at a birth; as, a pluriparous animal.

After birth; subsequent to birth; as, postnatal infanticide; postnatal diseases.

al time; adopted too soon; too early; untimely; as, a premature fall of snow; a premature birth; a premature opinion; premature decay.

Being or happening before birth.

reternatural appearance; a preternatural stillness; a preternatural presentation (in childbirth) or labor. This vile and preternatural temper of mind. South.

Belonging to a first birth; bearing young for the first time.

Primogeniture. [Obs.] The primogenitive and due of birth. Shak.

The state of being the firstborn of the same parents; seniority by birth among children of the same family.

Of or relating to a prince; regal; royal; of highest rank or authority; as, princely birth, character, fortune, etc.