progeny

noun

prog·e·ny ˈprä-jə-nē

plural progenies

Synonyms of progeny next

: descendants, children

: offspring of animals or plants

: outcome, product

: a body of followers, disciples, or successors

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The Lineage of Progeny

Progeny is the progeny of the Latin verb prōgignere, meaning "to beget." That Latin word is itself an offspring of the prefix pro-, meaning "forth," and gignere, which can mean "to beget" or "to bring forth." Gignere has produced a large family of English descendants, including benign (meaning "mild" or "harmless"), congenital (meaning "inherent"), engine, genius, germ, indigenous, ingenuous, and malign. Gignere even paired up with pro- again to produce a close relative of progeny: the noun progenitor can mean "an ancestor in the direct line," "a biologically ancestral form," or "a precursor or originator."

Examples of progeny in a Sentence

Many Americans are the progeny of immigrants. The small plants are the progeny of an oak tree. Their work is the progeny of many earlier studies.

Recent Examples on the Web The gorgeous bride was the oldest of three beautiful girls, the progeny of my daughter’s friend of over 50 years. —

Irv Erdos, San Diego Union-Tribune, 3 Sep. 2023 And, as usual, Madonna delivered by kissing her pop progeny, Britney Spears and Aguilera, on the mouth in a bit that whipped up a media frenzy at a time before such awards show provocations became commonplace. —

Gil Kaufman, Billboard, 23 Aug. 2023 What if this progeny pre-programmed for money-making zeal is also more likely to end up wandering around a mansion, micro-dosing LSD and sending peevish tweets? —

Frederick Kaufman, Fortune, 30 July 2023 Never send a weed that can resurrect itself or create progeny via viable seed to your compost pile. —

Tovah Martin, Washington Post, 9 Aug. 2023 The students who embraced the film’s shredding of taboos are now aging parents and grandparents castigated by their progeny for making sexist jokes or using the wrong pronouns. —

Ty Burr, Washington Post, 15 Aug. 2023 That leaves the other three children without a management role, despite the fact that all of Berlusconi’s progeny reportedly have roughly the same ownership stake in his empire. —

Nick Vivarelli, Variety, 12 June 2023 Beyoncé’s latest wax figure is the progeny of a team of 20 Madame Tussauds studio artists, sculptors and designers, and the project took six months to complete. —

Kyle Denis, Billboard, 27 July 2023 At its feet lie its progeny, smaller chunks that have broken off over millions of years. —

Zack Savitsky, Quanta Magazine, 12 July 2023 See More

These examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'progeny.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

Word History

Etymology

Middle English progenie, borrowed from Anglo-French, borrowed from Latin prōgeniēs, from prōgen-, variant stem of prōgignere "to produce as offspring, bring into being" + -iēs, deverbal and denominal noun suffix — more at progenitor

First Known Use

14th century, in the meaning defined at sense 1a

Time Traveler

The first known use of progeny was in the 14th century

See more words from the same century