1. That which generates. Glanvill.
2. (Geom.) A generatrix.
Generate
(Gen"er*ate) v. t. [imp. & p. p. Generated ; p. pr. & vb. n. Generating.] [L. generatus, p.
p. of generare to generate, fr. genus. See Genus, Gender.]
1. To beget; to procreate; to propagate; to produce (a being similar to the parent); to engender; as, every
animal generates its own species.
2. To cause to be; to bring into life. Milton.
3. To originate, especially by a vital or chemical process; to produce; to cause.
Whatever generates a quantity of good chyle must likewise generate milk.
Arbuthnot. 4. (Math.) To trace out, as a line, figure, or solid, by the motion of a point or a magnitude of inferior
order.
Generation
(Gen`er*a"tion) n. [OE. generacioun, F. génération, fr.L. generatio.]
1. The act of generating or begetting; procreation, as of animals.
2. Origination by some process, mathematical, chemical, or vital; production; formation; as, the generation
of sounds, of gases, of curves, etc.
3. That which is generated or brought forth; progeny; offspiring.
4. A single step or stage in the succession of natural descent; a rank or remove in genealogy. Hence: The
body of those who are of the same genealogical rank or remove from an ancestor; the mass of beings
living at one period; also, the average lifetime of man, or the ordinary period of time at which one rank
follows another, or father is succeeded by child, usually assumed to be one third of a century; an age.
This is the book of the generations of Adam.
Gen. v. 1.
Ye shall remain there [in Babylon] many years, and for a long season, namely, seven generations.
Baruch
vi. 3.
All generations and ages of the Christian church.
Hooker. 5. Race; kind; family; breed; stock.
Thy mother's of my generation; what's she, if I be a dog?
Shak. 6. (Geom.) The formation or production of any geometrical magnitude, as a line, a surface, a solid, by
the motion, in accordance with a mathematical law, of a point or a magnitude; as, the generation of a
line or curve by the motion of a point, of a surface by a line, a sphere by a semicircle, etc.
7. (Biol.) The aggregate of the functions and phenomene which attend reproduction.
There are four modes of generation in the animal kingdom: scissiparity or by fissiparous generation,
gemmiparity or by budding, germiparity or by germs, and oviparity or by ova.
Alternate generation (Biol.), alternation of sexual with asexual generation, in which the products of
one process differ from those of the other, — a form of reproduction common both to animal and vegetable
organisms. In the simplest form, the organism arising from sexual generation produces offspiring unlike
itself, agamogenetically. These, however, in time acquire reproductive organs, and from their impregnated
