Word.ws English Dictionary

begetting

begetting is the present participle and gerund 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.

Noun

begetting (plural begettings)

  1. The act or product of one who begets.
    • The gods' begettings in the Theogony are reminiscent of the biblical human begettings in the Old Testament and emphasize their being in nature, unlike the Judaic God outside of it.2007, John Peterman, On Ancient Philosophy

Forms of begetting

pluralbegettings

Words formed from begetting

Questions about begetting

What does begetting mean?
Begetting means the act or product of one who begets.
What is begetting the present participle and gerund of?
Begetting is the present participle and gerund of beget.
What part of speech is begetting?
Begetting is a noun.
What is the plural of begetting?
The plural of begetting is begettings.

Words near begetting in the dictionary

  1. begettals
  2. begetter
  3. begetters
  4. begettest
  5. begetteth
  6. begetting
  7. begettings
  8. Begg
  9. begg'd
  10. beggable
  11. Beggan Beggan

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: begetting (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.

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