English

Alternative forms

• still-born

Adjective

stillborn ‎(not comparable)

1. Dead at birth.
   • 1768, Horace Walpole, "Historic Doubts on the Life and Reign of King Richard III,"

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

   • 1978, Holy Bible (New International Version), Job 3:16,

     Or why was I not hidden in the ground like a stillborn child, like an infant who never saw the light of day?

2. (figuratively, by extension) Ignored, without influence, or unsuccessful from the outset; abortive.
   • 1859, Charles Reade, Love Me Little, Love Me Long, ch. 11,

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

   • 1915, William MacLeod Raine, The Highgrader, ch. 18,

     His lips framed themselves to whistle the first bars of a popular song, but the sound died stillborn.

Synonyms

• deadborn
• unfruitful

Translations

Noun

stillborn ‎(plural stillborns)

1. A baby that is born dead.