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generation

generation

129 2.5
A period of about twenty to thirty years when people grow up and have children
  • noun
  • /ˌdʒɛnəˈreɪʃən/
: generación
  • And now it's time for our generation to define a new social contract.
  • a generation ago
  • a generation later
  • one generation

He says it's going to be your generation that takes the fight.

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Examples

  • We are in a much better position today than any other generation to help the poor.

    Academic text (2008)
  • On the day of the funeral, the traders in the Serapeum get ready for the biggest business opportunity in a generation.

  • But now you know, your generation is so different than mine.

  • And then in the space of one generation, all of that ended.

  • We cannot be the generation that suddenly says that sounds hard.

  • Every generation must study in its turn.

  • Our generation is in trouble because my generation messed it up.

  • And I think this generation doesn't realize things take time.

  • Your poems about the wolves spoke to a generation of men who shared in your suffering.

  • Every generation faces its own unique challenges as society evolves.

Compounds

9 3.6

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

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

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

wind generation
  • Specialized
3 3.8

Electricity made from wind using turbines

2 8.0

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

1 9.8

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

Surface Forms

generation singular
generations plural

Morphology

generation = generate (transparent) = generate + ion

The sense 'average period in which children grow up and have children' is a conventional extension of the cohort sense and is derivable from the base formation.

Etymology

Generation originally meant 'a birth' from the Latin genus, so a generation as about 20–30 years is the span from when a group is born until many of them have children of their own. That's why we say 'a generation ago' to talk about the group before us.