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generation

generation

2.5
People born and living around the same time
  • noun
  • /ˌdʒɛnəˈreɪʃən/
translation icon : generación
  • I can think of no higher purpose than helping the next generation of Americans grow and prosper.
  • future generations
  • next generation
  • younger generation

And now it's our generation's turn to do great things.

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Examples

  • You know, for our generation, Mars is the new world.

  • Our generation is hopeless, man.

  • You are a light not only for your generation, but for the whole world.

  • Does every generation feel like it's failed the next?

  • Each generation must look after the generation that comes after it.

  • And now it's our generation's turn to do great things.

  • It is time for a new generation of leadership in America.

  • I am a self-appointed historian of those of my generation who are still living.

    Academic text (2011)
  • And yet restoring opportunities for future generations requires making sacrifices in the present.

    Academic text (2011)
  • Many experts agree that education is crucial for the new generation of students entering the workforce.

Synonyms

sedai
vsgeneration
9.9

A group of people born and living around the same time

refers specifically to people or organisms born and living at the same time

Antonyms

2.3

A single person or animal regarded separately from a group

Compounds

People in the United States born between 1946 and 1964 when birth rates rose after World War II

5 3.6

People born between the early 1960s and the late 1970s who come after the baby boomers

A difference in opinions and values between young people and their parents

2 8.0

A group of American writers and artists from the 1950s who reject social rules and choose free creative lives

wind generation
  • Specialized
1 3.8

Electricity made from wind using turbines

1 9.8

The idea that living things can appear from nonliving matter without parents is now known to be wrong

How Wide

generation
2.5
cohort
  • Specialized
19 5.1
age bracket
  • Specialized
4 3.1
one-year-old
24 1.0

Surface Forms

generation singular
generations plural

Morphology

generation = generate (transparent) = generate + ion

The cohort sense ('people produced/born around the same time') is a common noun extension of 'generate' and is predictable from the base.

Etymology

Generation comes from the Latin words genus and generare, which mean 'birth' and 'kind'. That is why a generation can mean all the people born around the same time—a group with a shared 'birth' time.