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by-blow

by-blow

1 9.9
A child whose parents are not married to each other
  • noun
  • Offensive
translation icon : bastardo
  • The novel tells the story of a boy who discovers he is a by-blow and struggles with his identity.

Examples

  • Growing up as a by-blow in a strict household made her long for acceptance.

  • Almost certainly it had been my mother's birth that had gotten me into the Royal School at Sordaling, for few men would feel such an obligation to a by-blow by a foreign woman, paid or not.

    Fiction book (1990)
  • Alaze: "... focusing on the human side of the catastrophe, he (P. Read) gives a blow-by-blow account of the accident... complete with reconstructed dialogue."

    Blog text (22)
  • He was ashamed to admit that he was a by-blow and not recognized by his father.

Synonyms

bastard
vsby-blow
  • Offensive
58 8.2

A child born to parents who are not married, now an offensive word

is a neutral nonoffensive legal description without insult
illegitimate child
vsby-blow
  • Formal
11 4.9

A child born to parents who are not married to each other

has identical meaning but is more informal and colloquial
love child
vsby-blow
11 6.5

A child born to parents who are not married to each other

is the neutral legal term without romantic or emotional tone
whoreson
vsby-blow
  • Offensive
1 9.9

A child born when the parents are not married

is a neutral legal term without insult or old fashioned tone

Antonyms

to legitimate
  • Formal
1 7.7

To make a child born outside marriage legally recognized

8.9

A child who is born to parents who are legally married

Surface Forms

by-blow singular
by-blows plural

Morphology

by-blow = blow (opaque) = by + blow

The sense 'illegitimate child' depends on an archaic sense of 'blow' meaning 'offspring' combined with 'by-' as secondary, which is not predictable to an average B1 learner.

Etymology

By-blow comes from old parts by- meaning 'beside' or 'secondary' and blow meaning 'something produced' or 'offspring'. That's why by-blow came to mean 'a child born to parents not married to each other'.