You can picture stillborn as a birth in which nothing moves: the thing arrives, but it never starts living. The still here is not 'up to now' — it is 'motionless'. Everything this word does grows out of that one picture, and the picture always points at the very first moment, never at a later collapse.
可以想成一個畫面：東西出生了，卻完全沒有動靜。這裡的 still，一種想法是「靜止」，不是「仍然」。所以 stillborn 指的不是走到一半才失敗，比較像是從第一秒起就沒有動起來。不管講的是嬰兒還是一個計畫，這個字都把鏡頭停在「開始」的那一刻。
From the word’s history
Wiktionary records stillborn as still + born, first attested in 1597 — literally 'born motionless', which is still the picture behind both the literal and the figurative use.
資料記載 stillborn 由 still 加 born 組成，最早出現在 1597 年。字面就是「出生時靜止不動」。這條線索正好對上今天的兩種用法：一個講嬰兒，一個講計畫。
Wiktionary entry supplied in evidence packet (source_ref kaikki:3f6f69a190036ae4:912803925): "From English still + born. First attested in 1597."
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