Pronunciation: ( jen"u-rā'shun), [key]
1. the entire body of individuals born and living at about the same time: the postwar generation.
2. the term of years, roughly 30 among human beings, accepted as the average period between the birth of parents and the birth of their offspring.
3. a group of individuals, most of whom are the same approximate age, having similar ideas, problems, attitudes, etc. Cf. Beat Generation, Lost Generation.
4. a group of individuals belonging to a specific category at the same time: Chaplin belonged to the generation of silent-screen stars.
5. a single step in natural descent, as of human beings, animals, or plants.
6. a form, type, class, etc., of objects existing at the same time and having many similarities or developed from a common model or ancestor: a new generation of computers.
7. the offspring of a certain parent or couple, considered as a step in natural descent.
8. the act or process of generating; procreation.
9. the state of being generated.
10. production by natural or artificial processes; evolution, as of heat or sound.
a. one complete life cycle.
b. one of the alternate phases that complete a life cycle having more than one phase: the gametophyte generation.
12. Math.the production of a geometrical figure by the motion of another figure.
13. Physics.one of the successive sets of nuclei produced in a chain reaction.
14. (in duplicating processes, as photocopying, film, etc.) the distance in duplicating steps that a copy is from the original work.
Random House Unabridged Dictionary, Copyright © 1997, by Random House, Inc., on Infoplease.