Word.ws English Dictionary

begat

/biˈɡæt/

begat is the simple past of beget.

Meaning of beget

Verb

beget (third-person singular simple present begets, present participle begetting, simple past begot or (archaic) begat, past participle begotten or (rare) begot)

  1. (literary, transitive) To produce or bring forth (a child); to be a parent of; to father or sire.
    • The King intends to beget a child within the next five years.
  2. (transitive) To cause; to produce; to bring forth.
    • Wealth begets wealth; poverty begets poverty.
    Synonyms:
    breed
  3. (obsolete, transitive) To get or obtain.
    • If there bee neuer a Seruant-monſter i' the Fayre, who can helpe it, he ſayes ; nor a neſt of Antiques ? Hee is loth to make Nature afraid in his Playes, like thoſe that beget Tales, Tempeſts, and ſuch like Drolleries, […]1614 November 10 (first performance; Gregorian calendar), Beniamin Iohnson [i.e., Ben Jonson], Bartholmew Fayre: A Comedie, […], London: […] I[ohn] B[eale] for Robert Allot, […], published 1631...
  4. (UK, dialectal, transitive) To happen to; befall.

Verb

begat (third-person singular simple present begats, present participle begatting, simple past and past participle begatted)

  1. (nonstandard) To beget.
    • I'm just a dyke who wants a kid/What could be weird about that/You don't have to be straight to begat1984 February 4, Sue Hyde, quoting Sappho Jones, “Abortion Activists Mark Jan 22. Anniversary”, in Gay Community News, volume 11, number 28, page 12

Noun

begat (plural begats)

  1. (nonstandard) An element of a lineage, especially of a lineage given in the Bible
    • To put food on the table, Ruth gleaned in the fields and one of the fields belonged to Boaz who noticed her and admired her. They married and Ruth bore a son, Obed. There ensues a begat-ridden genealogy and....2000, Earl F. Lehman, The God Bu$ine$$, page 59
    • There's a bunch of begats in First Chronicles, chapter six, and it's way dull, especially if you consider what a begat involves.2002, P. J. O'Rourke, The CEO of the Sofa, page 146

Synonyms of begat

Forms of begat

Verb
third-person singular presentbegats
present participlebegatting
past participlebegatted
pastbegatted
Noun
pluralbegats

Words that rhyme with begat

48 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about begat

What does begat mean?
Begat means to beget.
What is begat the simple past of?
Begat is the simple past of beget.
What part of speech is begat?
Begat can be a verb or a noun.
How do you pronounce begat?
Begat is pronounced /biˈɡæt/ (UK).
What is the past tense of begat?
The past tense of begat is begatted.

Words near begat in the dictionary

  1. beganst
  2. begar
  3. begarlanded
  4. begartered
  5. begas
  6. begat
  7. begather
  8. begathered
  9. begathering
  10. begathers
  11. begathon

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: begat (page history and authors); beget (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-begat.wav.

Cite this entry: “begat.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/begat. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.