progeny

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English progenie, also progeni,^[2][3][4] borrowed from Anglo-Norman progenie (“offspring, descendants”) and Middle French progenie,^[5] and directly borrowed from Latin prōgeniēs (“descent, offspring, lineage, family”).^[5][2][4] The Latin noun is formed from prō- (“forth”), the stem of gignō (“to beget”) and the noun suffix -iēs,^[5][6][4] and that verb goes back to Proto-Indo-European *gene- (“to give birth, beget”).^[4] The Anglo-Norman word is recorded from the second half of the 12th century,^[5] though the Anglo-Norman Dictionary's own earliest record is from the end of the 13th.^[7] Compare Italian progenie (13th century), Spanish progenia (13th century) and Portuguese progênia (1244).^[5]

Earliest recorded meaning

Offspring, children, descendants: about 1330, in Adam and Eve in the Auchinleck manuscript.^[5] Barnhart finds progeni earlier, before 1325, in the Cursor Mundi,^[2][8] and Etymonline dates the word to the early 14th century.^[4] Collins and Dictionary.com put it in the 13th century.^[9][6]

Semantic evolution

The Latin word already meant offspring, race, stock and family, and post-classical Latin added generation, posterity and, in the Vulgate, ancestry.^[5] Middle English took over the same range: besides children and descendants, progeny could mean a generation from about 1350, and a race or clan and also lineage or parentage from the Wycliffite Bible on.^[5][4] Chaucer has the word once and Gower nine times.^[10] Johnson (1755) still defined it as "offspring; race; generation".^[11] The senses of race, generation and ancestry then died out, the last of them, ancestry, in 1831.^[5] The word spread early to things produced, as in Gower's use for an outcome or fruit, and in the 15th century to spiritual or intellectual followers.^[5] The first record for the young of animals and plants is from 1592; today this is chiefly a word of agriculture and genetics, used especially of controlled breeding.^[5][12]

Timeline

• c. 1330 – offspring, children, descendants.^[5] Barnhart has progeni before 1325.^[2]
• c. 1350 – a generation (obsolete by 1719).^[5]
• before 1382 – a race or family line (obsolete by 1761); lineage, parentage (obsolete by 1831), in the Wycliffite Bible.^[5]
• before 1393 – figurative, a product or outcome, in Gower's Confessio Amantis.^[5]
• c. 1451 – spiritual or intellectual descendants, followers, in Capgrave's life of St Gilbert.^[5]
• 1526 – a single child (obsolete by 1790).^[5]
• 1592 – the offspring of animals or plants, in Nashe's Pierce Penilesse.^[5]

Meanings

Noun

1. The offspring or descendants of a person: All her progeny settled within a mile of the farm.^[9][12][5]
2. The young of an animal or plant, especially in controlled breeding and genetics: the progeny of a barley cross.^[12][5]
3. Something that originates from something else; a product or outcome: These reforms were the progeny of an old quarrel.^[9][12][5]
4. A body of followers or disciples; intellectual or artistic successors.^[12][5]
5. (obsolete, c. 1350–1719) A generation.^[5][13]
6. (obsolete, before 1382–1761) A race or line descended from one ancestor; a clan.^[5][13][12]
7. (obsolete, before 1382–1831) Lineage, parentage, ancestry.^[5][13] Merriam-Webster Unabridged labels this sense archaic.^[12]

Related words

• progenitive
• progenitor
• kin
• genital

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
3. ^ The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
4. ^ a b c d e f Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
6. ^ a b Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
7. ^ Anglo-Norman Dictionary (AND2), Aberystwyth University, anglo-norman.net (2nd ed., 2005–)
8. ^ Barnhart, Robert K., ed. (1995), The Barnhart Concise Dictionary of Etymology, New York: HarperCollins
9. ^ a b c Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
10. ^ Benson, Larry D., Glossarial Concordance to Middle English (Chaucer, Gower), Johns Hopkins University, github.com/jhu-digital-manuscripts/gcme
11. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
12. ^ a b c d e f g Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
13. ^ a b c Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press