English

Etymology

Pronunciation

• /ˌʤɛnəˈɹeɪʃən/, /%dZEn@"reIS@n/
• Rhymes: -eɪʃǝn

Noun

1. The act of generating or begetting; procreation, as of animals.
2. Origination by some process, mathematical, chemical, or vital; production; formation; as, the generation of sounds, of gases, of curves, etc
3. That which is generated or brought forth; progeny; offspring.
4. A period of around thirty years, the average amount of time before a child takes the place of its parents.
5. A single step or stage in the succession of natural descent; a rank or remove in genealogy, or collectively the body of people who are of the same genealogical rank or remove from an ancestor; the mass of beings living at one time.

   Quotations

   • This is the book of the generations of Adam - Genesis 5:1
   • Ye shall remain there [in Babylon] many years, and for a long season, namely, seven generations - Baruch 6:3
   • All generations and ages of the Christian church - Hooker

6. Race; kind; family; breed; stock.

   Quotations

   • Thy mother's of my generation; what's she, if I be a dog? - Shakespeare, Timon of Athens, I-iii

7. The formation or production of any geometrical magnitude, as a line, a surface, a solid, by the motion, in accordance with a mathematical law, of a point or a magnitude; as, the generation of a line or curve by the motion of a point, of a surface by a line, a sphere by a semicircle, etc.
8. "The aggregate of the functions and phenomena which attend reproduction.

   There are four modes of generation in the animal kingdom: scissiparity or by fissiparous generation, gemmiparity or by budding, germiparity or by germs, and oviparity or by ova"

Derived terms

• Alternate generation, alternation of sexual with asexual generation, in which the products of one process differ from those of the other, -- a form of reproduction common both to animal and vegetable organisms. In the simplest form, the organism arising from sexual generation produces offspring unlike itself, agamogenetically. These, however, in time acquire reproductive organs, and from their impregnated germs the original parent form is reproduced. In more complicated cases, the first series of organisms produced agamogenetically may give rise to others by a like process, and these in turn to still other generations. Ultimately, however, a generation is formed which develops sexual organs, and the original form is reproduced
• Spontaneous generation, the fancied production of living organisms without previously existing parents from inorganic matter, or from decomposing organic matter, a notion which at one time had many supporters; abiogenesis

Translations