engender
verb
Did you know?
A good paragraph about engender will engender understanding in the reader. Like its synonym generate, engender comes from the Latin verb generare, meaning “to generate” or “to beget,” and when the word was first used in the 14th century, engender meant “propagate” or “procreate.” That literal meaning having to do with creating offspring (which generate shared when it was adopted in the early 16th century) was soon joined by the “to cause to exist or develop; to produce” meaning most familiar to us today. Generare didn’t just engender generate and engender; regenerate, degenerate, and generation have the same Latin root. As you might suspect, the list of engender relatives does not end there. Generare comes from the Latin noun genus, meaning “origin” or “kind.” From this source we took our own word genus, plus gender, general, and generic, among other words.
Examples of engender in a Sentence
Charles McNulty, Los Angeles Times, 14 May 2025
How does that engender faith in her potentially being the next interim leader of our school district?
—Alice Yin, Chicago Tribune, 11 May 2025
This was a hard-playing, competitive Clippers team that engendered a lot of support and appreciation from their fan base.
—Jim Alexander, Oc Register, 7 May 2025
Culture is also attractive, drawing in top talent and customers while engendering loyalty in both.
—Tyler Shepherd, USA Today, 7 Apr. 2025
See All Example Sentences for engender
Cite this Entry
“Engender.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/engender. Accessed 28 May. 2025.
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engender
verb
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