respawn

UK/ɹɪˈspɔːn/US/ɹɪˈspɔːn/

verbC1Very rare — outside the 30,000 commonest English words, so you will meet it in writing rather than in speech — spawn sits at #6,272mostly written

Other forms: respawns, respawning, respawned

To respawn is to come back into a game after being defeated. Respawn at the checkpoint, wait to respawn, a respawn timer.

The delay before you respawn is what makes dying cost anything at all. Where players respawn is a design decision that shapes how a whole map plays.

Definitions of respawn

1verbrespawnTo come back into a game after being defeated.C1
“You respawn at the last checkpoint with half your ammunition.”

respawn is an action.

Where it comes from

Latin
expandere — stretch out; spread out
Old French
espandre
Anglo-Norman
espaundre
Middle English
spawnen
English
spawn
English, today
respawn

From re- + spawn. spawn Recorded since 1413; from Middle English spawnen, from Anglo-Norman espaundre, from Old French espandre, from Latin expandere (“stretch out; spread out”). a doublet of expand. Compare also Middle English spalden, spolden, spawden (“to cut open (a fish)”).

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA

Practised in Games & Toys

Practise this word

respawn in the wild

When a player character respawns, they usually reappear at an earlier point of the level and may incur a penalty, such as a loss of resources or score.
Spawning (video games)
The basic rules followed are generally the same as a regular deathmatch mode, with one important difference being that respawn is limited or not allowed at all.
Last one standing (video games)
Each player is assigned a specific number of lives per match (or just one when there is no respawn).
Last one standing (video games)

From Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. These sentences were written by other people about their own subjects; they are here to show the word at work, not as anybody’s opinion.

Related words

the espandre family

spawn

respawn — used too rare to measure · point at the bar for the others

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