jargon.artrocity.com
New Hacker's Dictionary the Jargon File v 4.4.6
1. [techspeak] In Unix parlance, to create a child process from within a process. Technically this is a ‘fork’; the term ‘spawn’ is a bit more general and is used for threads (lightweight processes) as well as traditional heavyweight processes.
2. In gaming, meant to indicate where (spawn-point) and when a player comes to life (or re-spawns) after being killed. Opposite of frag.