ENGENDER

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

IPA (US):

 Dictionary entry overview: What does engender mean? 

• ENGENDER (verb)
  The verb ENGENDER has 2 senses:

1. call forth

2. make (offspring) by reproduction

  Familiarity information: ENGENDER used as a verb is rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• ENGENDER (verb)

Present simple: I / you / we / they engender    ... he / she / it engenders   
Past simple: engendered   
Past participle: engendered   
-ing form: engendering   

Sense 1

Meaning:

Call forth

Classified under:

Verbs of sewing, baking, painting, performing

Synonyms:

breed; engender; spawn

Hypernyms (to "engender" is one way to...):

cause; do; make (give rise to; cause to happen or occur, not always intentionally)

Sentence frames:

Somebody ----s something
Something ----s something

Sense 2

Meaning:

Make (offspring) by reproduction

Classified under:

Verbs of grooming, dressing and bodily care

Synonyms:

beget; bring forth; engender; father; generate; get; mother; sire

Context example:

John fathered four daughters

Hypernyms (to "engender" is one way to...):

create; make (make or cause to be or to become)

Sentence frame:

Somebody ----s somebody

 Context examples 

What a miserable little poltroon had fear, engendered of unjust punishment, made of me in those days!

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

Such speculations as it engendered within me I kept to myself, and those were faint enough.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

The February 23 new moon in Pisces at four degrees may engender deep thinking in you about your next moves.

(AstrologyZone.com, by Susan Miller)

These were, I shortly found, connected almost solely with the dusty nature of the job, and of the consequent thirst engendered in the operators.

(Dracula, by Bram Stoker)

He took notice of a general tradition, that Yahoos had not been always in their country; but that many ages ago, two of these brutes appeared together upon a mountain; whether produced by the heat of the sun upon corrupted mud and slime, or from the ooze and froth of the sea, was never known; that these Yahoos engendered, and their brood, in a short time, grew so numerous as to overrun and infest the whole nation; that the Houyhnhnms, to get rid of this evil, made a general hunting, and at last enclosed the whole herd; and destroying the elder, every Houyhnhnm kept two young ones in a kennel, and brought them to such a degree of tameness, as an animal, so savage by nature, can be capable of acquiring, using them for draught and carriage; that there seemed to be much truth in this tradition, and that those creatures could not be yinhniamshy (or aborigines of the land), because of the violent hatred the Houyhnhnms, as well as all other animals, bore them, which, although their evil disposition sufficiently deserved, could never have arrived at so high a degree if they had been aborigines, or else they would have long since been rooted out; that the inhabitants, taking a fancy to use the service of the Yahoos, had, very imprudently, neglected to cultivate the breed of asses, which are a comely animal, easily kept, more tame and orderly, without any offensive smell, strong enough for labour, although they yield to the other in agility of body, and if their braying be no agreeable sound, it is far preferable to the horrible howlings of the Yahoos.

(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)

It is very possible that it had been in my mind a long time, and had gradually engendered my determination.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

Much too, you will think, reader, to engender jealousy: if a woman, in my position, could presume to be jealous of a woman in Miss Ingram's.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

Sometimes, as the road was cut through the pine woods that seemed in the darkness to be closing down upon us, great masses of greyness, which here and there bestrewed the trees, produced a peculiarly weird and solemn effect, which carried on the thoughts and grim fancies engendered earlier in the evening, when the falling sunset threw into strange relief the ghost-like clouds which amongst the Carpathians seem to wind ceaselessly through the valleys.

(Dracula, by Bram Stoker)

But I know in what it is engendered, Trotwood,—in how true a remembrance of our having grown up together, and in how true an interest in all relating to you.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

Still, I liked her almost as I liked my pupil Adele; except that, for a child whom we have watched over and taught, a closer affection is engendered than we can give an equally attractive adult acquaintance.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)