Generacioun

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. The act of bringing forth offspring by procreation ; a family line of descent or a group of people born around the same time
2. Archaic term for the process of begetting children ; the descent of a family or a body of people of the same age
3. Begetting or bringing children into being ; a line of ancestry or a cohort of people sharing a common birth era

Etymology: "Generacioun" is the Middle English form of "generation," and it carried the Latin sense of begetting and producing offspring. Its ancestor, Latin "generatio," came from "generare," to beget or produce, which grew from "genus," meaning birth or kind. The word reached English through Old French "generacion," and the idea of procreation stayed at its center. Medieval writers used it both for the act of begetting and for the broader act of bringing something into being, so a generation could describe a making as much as a line of descent. The sense of a group of people born around the same time came later, from the idea of a cohort produced together.