Other forms: generated, generating, generates
To generate is to produce something in quantity. Generate electricity, generate income, generate interest.
In engineering it is literal: a generator turns motion into electricity. In business it means producing a result: generate revenue, generate leads. In writing and computing it means producing automatically: generated text, generate a report. Note generation, which means both the act and a group of people born about the same time; and generative, which since about 2022 has been attached to almost everything.
1verbgenerateTo produce something in quantity.
“The wind farm generates enough electricity for the whole town.”
generate is a producing.
To generate is to beget. Latin generō meant to procreate before it meant to produce, which is why a generator and a generation turn out to be the same word.
Proto-Indo-European
*ǵenh₁-
English, today
generate
From generō + -ate, from genus + -ō; see genus. Compare Italian generare, French générer (and its older (and now obsolete) English cognate from Middle French, gender (“engender, breed, copulate”)).
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA