generation

  1. Noun.  The act of generating or begetting; procreation, as of animals.
  2. Noun.  Origination by some process, mathematical, chemical, or vital; production; formation; as, the '''generation''' of sounds, of gases, of curves, etc.
  3. Noun.  That which is generated or brought forth; progeny; offspring.
  4. Noun.  A period of around thirty years, the average amount of time before a child takes the place of its parents.
  5. Noun.  A single step or stage in the succession of natural descent; a rank or remove in genealogy, or collectively the body of people who are of the same genealogical rank or remove from an ancestor; the mass of beings living at one time.
  6. Noun.  Race; kind; family; breed; stock.
  7. Noun.  (geometry) 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.
  8. Noun.  (biology) The aggregate of the functions and phenomena which attend reproduction.

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This entry was last updated on RefTopia from its source on 3/20/2012.