Etymologically
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generation

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Pronunciation

  • IPA: /ˌdʒen.əˈreɪ.ʃᵊn/[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English generacioun,[2] borrowed from Old French generacion (“race, people; offspring; procreation”),[3][4] and directly from Latin generātiō (“a generating, begetting”),[3][4] from generāre (“to bring forth, beget, produce”),[3][4] from genus (“race, kind”),[3] from Proto-Indo-European *gene- (“to give birth, beget”).[3]

Earliest recorded meaning

Offspring, descendants, and a group of descendants of one family or period: before 1325, in Cursor Mundi.[4] Etymonline dates the sense “people born about the same time” to the early 14th century.[3]

Semantic evolution

The idea was of descendants at the same stage in a line of descent;[3] a generation was traditionally reckoned at 30 years, though in other uses as few as 17.[3] The act of begetting, procreation, is from about 1374 in the OED[5] and the late 14th century in Etymonline.[3] Production by natural or artificial processes is from about 1400,[5] and the production of electricity from 1886.[5] First-generation and second-generation, of American immigrant families, are from 1856.[3] Generation gap is recorded by 1967,[3] and Generation X, for Americans born after the baby boomers, from 1991, in Douglas Coupland's book of that name.[3]

Timeline

  • before 1325 – offspring; a generation.[4]
  • c. 1374 – procreation.[5]
  • c. 1400 – production.[5]
  • 1856 – second-generation immigrants.[3]
  • 1886 – the generation of electricity.[5]
  • 1967 – generation gap.[3]
  • 1991 – Generation X.[3]

Modern meaning

Noun

  1. All the people born and living at about the same time.
  2. A single stage in the descent of a family: three generations.
  3. The average time between the birth of parents and of their children, about 30 years.
  4. The act of producing or creating: the generation of electricity.
  5. A stage in the development of a product: a new generation of computers.

Word family

  • generational
  • generationally
  • cogeneration
  • first-generation
  • intergeneration
  • intergenerational
  • pregeneration
  • regeneration

References

  1. ^ Jones, Daniel (2011), Cambridge English Pronouncing Dictionary, 18th ed., ed. Peter Roach, Jane Setter and John Esling, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
  2. ^ Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
  3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
  4. ^ a b c d e Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
  5. ^ a b c d e f Simpson, J. A.; Weiner, E. S. C., eds. (1989), The Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press