generation
Pluralgenerations
- 1A group of people born within the same range of years who share cultural touchstones and can relate to one another.
Her generation came of age during the rise of social media.
Marketing campaigns often target one generation while alienating another.
UsageOften people of my generation, the younger generation, the older generation.
Similarcohort, peers, contemporaries
- 2The act or process of creating something or bringing it into being; production or creation.
Wind turbines along the coast handle most of the region's power generation.
The report focused on the generation of new ideas within small teams.
UsageUsually the generation of something, or after another noun: power generation, electricity generation.
Similarproduction, creation, formation
Oppositeconsumption, destruction
- 3A single stage in the line of descent within a family; the members of a family at the same level, such as siblings, considered as a unit.
The farm has passed from one generation to the next for over a century.
Genealogists trace each generation back through birth and marriage records.
UsageCommon patterns: from one generation to the next, and the first generation to do something.
Note
The genealogist's sense, counted rung by rung down a family tree. In Genesis 5:1, "the book of the generations of Adam", the plural stands for a whole line of descent, in effect a genealogy. Once counted, the steps become a measure: the exiles in Baruch remain "seven generations". That habit of counting points toward the thirty-year span.
Checked 5 Nov 2026 · 4 facts
- Genesis 5:1 contains the quoted wording. en.wikisource.org
- The passage introduces a genealogy. en.wikisource.org
- Baruch describes the exiles' stay in Babylon as lasting seven generations. en.wikisource.org
- A generation can denote a conventional span of approximately thirty years. en.wiktionary.org
- 4One stage in the development of a technology, product, or entertainment series, set apart from the versions before and after it.
Each generation of processors packs more computing power into a smaller chip.
The airline is replacing its fleet with a new generation of fuel-efficient jets.
UsageOften the next generation of a product. Usually hyphenated before a noun (a first-generation model) and open after a verb (it is first generation).
Note
Technology borrows the family metaphor and often numbers its products by ordinal. The first-generation iPhone of 2007 had successors much as parents have heirs. A new generation is the next stage in the line, though its design may change little from the one before.
- 5The average span of time, usually reckoned at about 25 to 30 years, for children to grow up and have children of their own, used as a unit of time.
A generation has passed since the mill closed its doors.
The feud between the two families lasted for three generations.
UsageCommon in time phrases: a generation ago, for generations, within a generation.
- 6A person's descendants, progeny, or offspring; those who come after someone in the family line.
UsageElsewhere, say descendants or offspring: most readers take my generation to mean people of my age.
Note
Most of the English-speaking world has let this use go, but it is still heard in Nigeria.
Less common meanings
- 7The act or process of producing a living creature or organism; procreation.
The generation of healthy offspring depends heavily on the parents' nutrition.
The lecture compared the generation of mammals, which bear live young, with that of birds, which lay eggs.
UsageSet phrase: spontaneous generation, the old idea that living things arise from non-living matter.
Similarprocreation, reproduction, breeding, propagation
Note
Early modern writers used it plainly for reproduction. Spenser's creatures "in generation seek to quench their inward fire", and Thomas Browne writes in 1658 of "the power of generation". The same root runs under the general sense of production, where begetting widened into making of any kind.
- 8A copy of an audio or video recording, counted by how many copying steps separate it from the original.
The bootleg circulating online is at least a fourth generation, with noticeable hiss.
Archivists prefer the master tape because every generation loses picture quality.
Note
Video engineers count copies the way families count descent. The master is the original, a copy of it is one generation away, and a copy of that copy is two. Video reference books have warned since at least 1983 that the picture gets worse with every added generation. Component formats such as Betacam made that loss across generations less of a problem.
- 9
- 10The formation of a geometric figure (a line, surface, or solid) through the motion of a point, line, or surface according to a mathematical law.
- 11A single application of a cellular automaton's rule to a pattern, producing the next state of every cell simultaneously.
Practice
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Origin
Inherited from Middle English generacioun, borrowed from Old French generacion and from Latin generātiō, which comes from generāre ("to beget, generate"). It can be analyzed as generate plus the suffix -ion.
Checked 5 Nov 2026 · 4 facts
- English generation was inherited from Middle English generacioun. en.wiktionary.org
- Latin generātiō derives from the verb generāre. en.wiktionary.org
- Latin generāre means to beget or generate. en.wiktionary.org
- Generation can be analyzed as generate plus -ion. en.wiktionary.org