- fetus
- late 14c., from L. fetus "the bearing, bringing forth, or hatching of young," from L. base *fe- "to generate, bear," also "to suck, suckle" (see fecund). In L., this was sometimes transferred figuratively to the newborn creature itself, or used in a sense of "offspring, brood" (cf. "Germania quos horrida parturit fetus," Horace), but this was not the basic meaning. Also used of plants, in the sense of "fruit, produce, shoot." The spelling foetus is sometimes attempted as a learned Latinism, but it is not historic.