1. [n]  the mass of eggs deposited by fish or amphibians or molluscs
2. [v]  emit spawn, of fish; "The salmon swims upstream to spawn"
3. [v]  call forth

Spawn
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1. \Spawn\, v. t. [imp. & p. p. {Spawned}; p. pr. & vb. n.
   {Spawning}.] [OE. spanen, OF. espandre, properly, to shed,
   spread, L. expandere to spread out. See {Expand}.]
   1. To produce or deposit (eggs), as fishes or frogs do.
   2. To bring forth; to generate; -- used in contempt.
            One edition [of books] spawneth another. --Fuller.
   

2. \Spawn\, v. i.
   1. To deposit eggs, as fish or frogs do.
   2. To issue, as offspring; -- used contemptuously.
   

3. \Spawn\, n. [[root]170. See {Spawn}, v. t.]
   1. The ova, or eggs, of fishes, oysters, and other aquatic
      animals.
   2. Any product or offspring; -- used contemptuously.
   3. (Hort.) The buds or branches produced from underground
      stems.
   4. (Bot.) The white fibrous matter forming the matrix from
      which fungi.
   {Spawn eater} (Zo["o]l.), a small American cyprinoid fish
      ({Notropis Hudsonius}) allied to the dace.
   

To create a child process in a multitasking operating system. E.g. Unix's fork system call or one of the spawn() library routines provided by most MS-DOS, Novell NetWare and OS/2 C compilers - spawnl(), spawnle(), etc.