generate

From Latin generō (“beget, procreate, produce”) +‎ -ate (verb-forming suffix), from genus (“a kind, race, family”, gener- in compounds) +‎ -ō; see genus. Compare Italian generare, French générer (and its older (and now obsolete) English cognate from Middle French, gender (“engender, breed, copulate”)).

• (UK) IPA^(key): /ˈd͡ʒɛn.ə.ɹeɪt/
• (US) IPA^(key): /ˈd͡ʒɛn.ɚ.eɪt/

  • Audio (US):

    (file)

• (Indic) IPA^(key): /ˈd͡ʒen(a)reːʈ/
• (Canada) IPA^(key): /ˈd͡ʒɛnəreːt/
  • (Ottawa Valley) IPA^(key):

generate (third-person singular simple present generates, present participle generating, simple past and past participle generated)

1. (transitive) To bring into being; give rise to.

   The discussion generated an uproar.

   • 1966, Owen Chadwick, The Victorian Church, volume 1, page 126:

     The Ecclesiastical Commission was generated by Sir Robert Peel and bore the marks of Peel’s personality; bureaucratic, capable and cold.

   • 2012 May 9, Jonathan Wilson, “Europa League: Radamel Falcao's Atlético Madrid rout Athletic Bilbao”, in the Guardian:

     In the last 20 minutes Athletic began to generate the sort of pressure of which they are capable, but by then it was far too late: the game had begun to slip away from them as early as the seventh minute.

   • 2013 June 22, “T time”, in The Economist, volume 407, number 8841, page 68:

     The ability to shift profits to low-tax countries by locating intellectual property in them is often assumed to be the preserve of high-tech companies. current tax rules make it easy for all sorts of firms to generate “stateless income”: profit subject to tax in a jurisdiction that is neither the location of the factors of production that generate the income nor where the parent firm is domiciled.

2. (transitive) To produce as a result of a chemical or physical process.

   Adding concentrated sulphuric acid to water generates heat.

3. (transitive) To procreate, beget.

   They generated many offspring.

4. (transitive, mathematics) To form a figure from a curve or solid.

   Rotating a circle generates a sphere.

5. (intransitive) To appear or occur; be generated.
   • 1883, Thomas Hardy, The Three Strangers:

     Mrs. Fennel, seeing the steam begin to generate on the countenances of her guests, crossed over and touched the fiddler's elbow and put her hand on the serpent's mouth.

• (bring into being): bring about, create, engender, make, produce, spawn

• (antonym(s) of “bring into being”): abrogate, annihilate, degenerate, extinguish, obliterate, ungenerate
• (antonym(s) of “produce as a result of a chemical or physical process”): erase

• (bring into being): augment, foster, extend, grow

Learned borrowing from Latin generātus, perfect passive participle of generō (“beget, procreate, produce”). See Etymology 1 and -ate (adjective-forming suffix) for more.

generate (not comparable)

2. (rare) generated, begotten
   • 1965, R. A. Norris, God & World in Early Chrisian Theology, volume ii. 67:

     It poses the thorny problem of the status of the Logos. Is he generate or ingenerate?.. Justin replies that he is generate—but in a special sense.

   • 1543 (1464), John Hardyng, Chronicle of John Hardyng, page 282:

     Edwarde his sonne & heire first generate..Crouned was in all royall estate.

• “generate”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.
• William Dwight Whitney, Benjamin E Smith, editors (1911), “generate”, in The Century Dictionary , New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., →OCLC.

• teenager, Green Tea, green tea, renegate, Tea Green, teen-ager

generate

1. inflection of generare:
   1. second-person plural present indicative/subjunctive
   2. second-person plural imperative
   3. feminine plural past participle

• argentee, reagente

generāte

1. vocative masculine singular of generātus

generate

1. second-person singular voseo imperative of generar combined with te