definition of the word generation

< Middle English generacioun < Old French génération < Latin generatio < generare (“‘to beget, generate’”); see generate.

• IPA: /ˌʤɛnəˈɹeɪʃən/, SAMPA: /%dZEn@"reIS@n/
•  Audio (US)^{help, file}
• Rhymes: -eɪʃǝn

generation (plural generations)

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. (geometry) 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. (biology) "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"

• alternate generation
• spontaneous generation

• generate

Definition from Wiktionary Content avaible with GNU Free Documentation License

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