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.
Synonyms
Examples of engender in a Sentence
Kat Merck, WIRED, 5 Feb. 2025
These scenes are meant to engender discussion, not arousal.
—Esther Zuckerman, New York Times, 19 Jan. 2025
That may not engender much bipartisan cooperation to pass any of the provisions as a standalone, though there is bipartisan support for PBM changes.
—Nathaniel Weixel, The Hill, 2 Jan. 2025
Unsurprisingly, the practice doesn’t engender much goodwill with players.
—Gabrielle Starr, Boston Herald, 14 Jan. 2025
See all Example Sentences for engender 
Dictionary Entries Near engender
Cite this Entry
“Engender.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/engender. Accessed 19 Feb. 2025.
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engender
verb
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