respawn

English

Etymology

Etymology tree

Proto-Italic *wre-

Latin re-der.

Old French re-bor.

Middle English re-

English re-

English spawn

English respawn

From re- + spawn.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ɹɪˈspɔːn/, /ɹiˈspɔːn/

• Audio (Southern England):

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• Audio (Southern England):

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• Audio (US (noun)):

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• Rhymes: -ɔːn

Verb

respawn (third-person singular simple present respawns, present participle respawning, simple past and past participle respawned)

1. (zoology) To spawn again.
   • 1970, Idaho Wildlife Review, volumes 23-29, page 161:

     This diminishes even further the remote chance of the fish surviving to respawn.

2. (video games, of a collected item, weapon or other pickup, or enemy) To reappear at its spawn point.
3. (video games, of a character) To re-enter play after being killed, often where the game was last saved.
   • 2009 September 17, Pinsent Masons, “Hidden Flash cookies track even opt-out users on web's biggest sites”, in Out-law‎^[1], retrieved 24 April 2014:

     Some top 100 websites are circumventing user deletion of HTTP cookies by respawning them using Flash cookies with identical values, […]

   • 2014 March 25, Angela Watercutter, “Tom Cruise Respawns Into Alien War in New Edge of Tomorrow Trailer”, in Wired‎^[2], retrieved 24 April 2014:

     How and why he gets stuck in this constant respawn cycle is a bit unclear, […]

4. (Internet slang) In reality shifting and subliminal communities, to permanently leave one's current reality (often through a perceived severance of ties or, controversially, through physical death) to "re-enter" or reincarnate into a "desired reality."
   • 2024 April 3, Dan Milmo, quoting Mark Borkowski, “How much is Elon Musk to blame for Tesla sales slip?”, in The Guardian‎^[3], →ISSN:

     “Everything in this cult of personality is fragile,” Borkowski said, but added that Musk had proven before that he can “re-spawn” when he encountered difficulties.

Antonyms

• despawn

Derived terms

• respawnable
• respawner

Noun

respawn (plural respawns)

1. (video games) The reappearance of an item or enemy; the situation where something is respawned.
   • 2014, Jeff W. Murray, C# Game Programming Cookbook for Unity 3D, page 339:

     The race controller will check for a trigger hit between this player's collider and the start/finish line trigger, but this script has an OnTriggerEnter function to check for triggers used to force a respawn.

2. (Internet slang) The act of permanently shifting awareness or existence to a different reality, frequently associated with the UGSC (Underground Subliminal Community).

Anagrams

• Pawsner, enwraps, pawners, repawns, spawner