generate

Formsgenerates, generating, generated

1. 1
   verbtransitive

   To bring something into being or cause it to happen.

   The proposal generated intense debate in the committee.

   Small businesses generate much of the country's new employment.

   Similarcreate, produce, cause, spark, provoke

2. 2
   verbtransitive

   To produce something as the result of a chemical or physical process.

   The turbines generate power as water rushes through them.

   This reaction generated a surprising amount of heat.

   Similarproduce, make, create, release

   Oppositeconsume, absorb

3. 3
   verbintransitive

   To appear or arise; to come into existence.

   Tension can generate quickly when expectations clash.

   Unexpected errors generated during the overnight processing.

   Similararise, emerge, develop, build

   Oppositedissipate, subside

   Note

   Here the verb takes no object, and the thing that comes into being is the subject. Thomas Hardy's The Three Strangers (1883) has "the steam begin to generate on the countenances" of a dancing party. Most uses of generate need a stated cause and a stated result. This one lets the result simply arise, which suits heat, mist or tension building up on its own.

4. 4
   verbtransitive

   To form a geometric figure by moving a curve, line, or solid through space.

   Rotating a semicircle about its diameter generates a sphere.

   These equations generate the surface used in the model.

   Similarform, produce, describe, trace

   Note

   In geometry, figures can be made by motion instead of being drawn. The subject of the verb is usually the movement itself, such as rotating or sweeping, and the object is the figure that results. A circle turned about its diameter generates a sphere. The word describes how a shape comes about, so the same sphere can be generated in more than one way.

5. 5
   verbtransitive

   To bring offspring into existence; to beget or procreate.

   The patriarch generated a large family over many decades.

   They believed the union would generate strong and healthy children.

   Similarbeget, father, sire, produce, breed

   Note

   The meaning closest to the word's roots. Latin generō meant "beget, procreate, produce" and was built on genus, "kind, race, family", so making offspring is where the verb starts. English once had a second borrowing of the same Latin verb through Middle French: gender, meaning "engender, breed, copulate", now obsolete. The everyday "bring into being" meaning widened from this one, moving from begetting a family to producing anything at all.

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