Stillborn

//ˈstɪlbɔː(ɹ)n// adj, noun

adj, noun ·Moderate ·College level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    A baby that is born dead.

    "About 35% of stillborns are discovered to have major structural anomalies by chromosomal studies and autopsy findings."

Adjective
  1. 1
    Dead at birth. not-comparable

    "Queen Anne, before Elizabeth, bore a still-born son."

  2. 2
    Ignored, without influence, or unsuccessful from the outset; abortive. broadly, figuratively, not-comparable

    "This, gentlemen, is a list of the joint-stock companies created last year. . . . Of these some were stillborn, but the majority hold the market."

Adjective
  1. 1
    (of newborn infant) showing no signs of life at birth; not liveborn wordnet
  2. 2
    failing to accomplish an intended result wordnet

Synonyms

All synonyms
abortivedeadabortiveasleepasleep in jesusat rest

Example

More examples

"I had a stillborn baby three years ago."

Etymology

From English still + born. First attested in 1597.

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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.