The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48:

Berth \Berth\ (b[~e]rth), n. [From the root of bear to produce,
   like birth nativity. See Birth.] [Also written birth.]
   [1913 Webster]
   1. (Naut.)
      (a) Convenient sea room.
      (b) A room in which a number of the officers or ship's
          company mess and reside.
      (c) The place where a ship lies when she is at anchor, or
          at a wharf.
          [1913 Webster]

   2. An allotted place; an appointment; situation or
      employment. "He has a good berth." --Totten.
      [1913 Webster]

   3. A place in a ship to sleep in; a long box or shelf on the
      side of a cabin or stateroom, or of a railway car, for
      sleeping in.
      [1913 Webster]

   Berth deck, the deck next below the lower gun deck. --Ham.
      Nav. Encyc.

   To give (the land or any object) a wide berth, to keep at
      a distance from it.
      [1913 Webster]

The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48:

Birth \Birth\ (b[~e]rth), n. [OE. burth, birth, AS. beor[eth],
   gebyrd, fr. beran to bear, bring forth; akin to D. geboorte,
   OHG. burt, giburt, G. geburt, Icel. bur[eth]r, Skr. bhrti
   bearing, supporting; cf. Ir. & Gael. beirthe born, brought
   forth. [root]92. See 1st Bear, and cf. Berth.]
   1. The act or fact of coming into life, or of being born; --
      generally applied to human beings; as, the birth of a son.
      [1913 Webster]

   2. Lineage; extraction; descent; sometimes, high birth; noble
      extraction.
      [1913 Webster]

            Elected without reference to birth, but solely for
            qualifications.                       --Prescott.
      [1913 Webster]

   3. The condition to which a person is born; natural state or
      position; inherited disposition or tendency.
      [1913 Webster]

            A foe by birth to Troy's unhappy name. --Dryden.
      [1913 Webster]

   4. The act of bringing forth; as, she had two children at a
      birth. "At her next birth." --Milton.
      [1913 Webster]

   5. That which is born; that which is produced, whether animal
      or vegetable.
      [1913 Webster]

            Poets are far rarer births than kings. --B. Jonson.
      [1913 Webster]

            Others hatch their eggs and tend the birth till it
            is able to shift for itself.          --Addison.
      [1913 Webster]

   6. Origin; beginning; as, the birth of an empire.
      [1913 Webster]

   New birth (Theol.), regeneration, or the commencement of a
      religious life.
      [1913 Webster]

   Syn: Parentage; extraction; lineage; race; family.
        [1913 Webster]

The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48:

Birth \Birth\, n.
   See Berth. [Obs.] --De Foe.
   [1913 Webster]

WordNet (r) 3.0 (2006):

birth
    n 1: the time when something begins (especially life); "they
         divorced after the birth of the child"; "his election
         signaled the birth of a new age" [ant: death, demise,
         dying]
    2: the event of being born; "they celebrated the birth of their
       first child" [syn: birth, nativity, nascency,
       nascence] [ant: death, decease, expiry]
    3: the process of giving birth [syn: parturition, birth,
       giving birth, birthing]
    4: the kinship relation of an offspring to the parents [syn:
       parentage, birth]
    5: a baby born; an offspring; "the overall rate of incidence of
       Down's syndrome is one in every 800 births"
    v 1: cause to be born; "My wife had twins yesterday!" [syn:
         give birth, deliver, bear, birth, have]

Moby Thesaurus II by Grady Ward, 1.0:

187 Moby Thesaurus words for "birth":
   Altmann theory, DNA, De Vries theory, Galtonian theory,
   Mendelianism, Mendelism, RNA, Verworn theory, Weismann theory,
   Weismannism, Wiesner theory, abiogenesis, abortion, accouchement,
   affiliation, allele, allelomorph, ancestry, animal spirits,
   animate existence, animation, apparentation, archigenesis,
   aristocracy, aristocraticalness, babyhood, bear, bearing, beget,
   beginning, beginnings, being alive, biogenesis, birth throes,
   birthing, blastogenesis, blessed event, blood, bloodline,
   blue blood, branch, breed, bring to birth, character, childbearing,
   childbed, childbirth, childhood, chromatid, chromatin, chromosome,
   commencement, common ancestry, confinement, consanguinity, cradle,
   creation, dawn, dawning, delivery, derivation, descent,
   determinant, determiner, development, diathesis, digenesis,
   direct line, distaff side, distinction, emergence, endowment,
   engender, epigenesis, eugenics, eumerogenesis, existence,
   extraction, factor, family, father, female line, filiation,
   freshman year, gene, generation, genesiology, genesis,
   genetic code, genetics, genteelness, gentility, give birth to,
   giving birth, hatching, having a baby, having life, hereditability,
   heredity, heritability, heritage, heterogenesis, histogenesis,
   homogenesis, honorable descent, house, immortality,
   inborn capacity, inception, inchoation, incipience, incipiency,
   incunabula, infancy, inheritability, inheritance, isogenesis,
   labor, life, lifetime, line, line of descent, lineage, liveliness,
   living, long life, longevity, male line, matrocliny, merogenesis,
   metagenesis, miscarriage, monogenesis, mother, multiparity,
   nascence, nascency, nativity, nobility, noble birth, nobleness,
   onset, opening, origin, origination, orthogenesis, outset,
   outstart, pangenesis, parentage, parthenogenesis, parturition,
   patrocliny, pharmacogenetics, phylum, pregnancy, procreate,
   procreation, quality, race, rank, recessive character, replication,
   royalty, seed, sept, side, sire, slip, spear side, spindle side,
   spontaneous generation, spriteliness, start, stem, stirps, stock,
   strain, succession, sword side, the Nativity, the stork, travail,
   viability, vitality, vivacity, youth



Easton's 1897 Bible Dictionary:

Birth
   As soon as a child was born it was washed, and rubbed with salt
   (Ezek. 16:4), and then swathed with bandages (Job 38:9; Luke
   2:7, 12). A Hebrew mother remained forty days in seclusion after
   the birth of a son, and after the birth of a daughter double
   that number of days. At the close of that period she entered
   into the tabernacle or temple and offered up a sacrifice of
   purification (Lev. 12:1-8; Luke 2:22). A son was circumcised on
   the eighth day after his birth, being thereby consecrated to God
   (Gen. 17:10-12; comp. Rom. 4:11). Seasons of misfortune are
   likened to the pains of a woman in travail, and seasons of
   prosperity to the joy that succeeds child-birth (Isa. 13:8; Jer.
   4:31; John 16:21, 22). The natural birth is referred to as the
   emblem of the new birth (John 3:3-8; Gal. 6:15; Titus 3:5,
   etc.).


Bouvier's Law Dictionary, Revised 6th Ed (1856):

BIRTH. The act of being wholly brought into the world. The whole body must
be detached from that of the mother, in order to make the birth complete. 5
C. & P. 329; S. C. 24 E. C. L. R. 344 6 C. & P. 349; S. C. 25 E. C. L. R.
433.
     2. But if a child be killed with design and maliciously after it has
wholly come forth from the body of the mother, although still connected with
her by means of the umbilical cord, it seems that such killing will be
murder. 9 C. & P. 25 S . C. 38 E. C. L. R. 21; 7 C. & P. 814. Vide articles
Breath; Dead Born; Gestation; Life; and 1 Beck' s Med. Jur. 478, et seq.; 1
Chit. Med. Jur. 438; 7 C. & P. 814; 1 Carr. & Marsh. 650; S. C. 41 E. C. L.
R. 352; 9 C. & P. 25.
     3. It seems that unless the child be born alive, it is not properly a
birth, but a carriage. 1 Chit. Pr. 35, note z. But see Russ. & Ry. C. C.
336.



The Devil's Dictionary (1881-1906):

BIRTH, n.  The first and direst of all disasters.  As to the nature of
it there appears to be no uniformity.  Castor and Pollux were born
from the egg.  Pallas came out of a skull.  Galatea was once a block
of stone.  Peresilis, who wrote in the tenth century, avers that he
grew up out of the ground where a priest had spilled holy water.  It
is known that Arimaxus was derived from a hole in the earth, made by a
stroke of lightning.  Leucomedon was the son of a cavern in Mount
Aetna, and I have myself seen a man come out of a wine cellar.