UML is a language with very structured syntax and semantics. See the UML Specification at http://www.omg.org/spec/UML
To answer your question, think that in UML Thread is an active class. The metaclass of the UML class actually owns a boolean attribute called isActive with the semantics you need. The active class owns the classifier behavior, which is the behavior that will be executed automatically for each object as soon as an instance of the class is created. If the behavior is modeled using an action or interaction in which other active classes are created (Create action), then this is semantically similar to a thread that creates other threads.
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