By-blow

Quick meaning: By-blow is a noun meaning A blow struck to the side or from the side, as in swordplay; a secondary or incidental strike of any sort.

Meaning

A blow struck to the side or from the side, as in swordplay; a secondary or incidental strike of any sort.

More Meanings

1. (slang) An illegitimate child; a child of an unknown or unmarried father.

Example Sentences

As a by-blow in the course of his relentless campaigns against Louis, Willem gained the three thrones of Britain in 1699 – but what a by-blow this proved!

Either commander took speedy advantage of it—Hopton to make a swift diversion into Sussex and capture Arundel Castle (which was but a by-blow, for in a few weeks he had lost it again).

The best hope has been that friends and family would talk, a hope partly realized in this discreet but perceptive memoir by his illegitimate daughter. . . . Little Mary was a by-blow and an inconvenience.

c. 1892, Herman Melville, "Billy Budd, Foretopman" (novella), in Herman Melville: Selected Tales and Poems, Holt, Rinehart & Winston (1950), p. 298, Yes, Billy was a foundling, a presumable bye-blow, and, evidently, no ignoble one.

Word Forms

• by-blows
• byblow

Synonyms for by-blow

Depending on context, synonyms include bastard, illegitimate.

Related Words

Related dictionary entries include bastard, illegitimate, byblow, blow, handblow, downstrike.

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