Home UK English virgin birth

Meaning of virgin birth in English:

virgin birth

noun

  • 1the Virgin BirthThe doctrine of Christ's birth from a mother, Mary, who was a virgin.

    count noun ‘these voices seem to deny forever the idea of virgin births’
    • ‘Thus, the truth of Mary's perpetual virginity is, like the Virgin Birth, essential Catholic belief.’
    • ‘We will not go into the difference between the immaculate conception and virgin birth.’
    • ‘At school, like my peers, I was indoctrinated in the mysteries of original and venal sin, virgin birth, the respective criteria for entry to limbo, purgatory, and heaven.’
    • ‘Matthew and Luke included accounts of Jesus' virgin birth in their Gospels because, as Thomas Cahill says, they were convinced they were true.’
    • ‘Other than Mary, mother of Jesus, however, few women - whether ‘good’ or ‘bad’ - can boast a virgin birth.’

  • 2Zoology
    mass noun Parthenogenesis.

    ‘they produce swarms of young by virgin birth’
    • ‘These so-called virgin births are common in invertebrates like snails, but are unusual in higher vertebrates.’
    • ‘The bonnethead shark and bamboo shark are from different families; the bonnethead suspected of a virgin birth gave birth to a live pup, rather than laying eggs as the bamboo shark had.’
    • ‘It was a virgin birth: She hadn't been near a male for six years.’
    • ‘It would be looking at why girls of 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, and 15 years of age are having abortions or having children today - and I can tell members they have not had virgin births.’