engender

UK/ɪnˈdʒɛn.də//ɛnˈd͡ʒɛn.dɚ/

engender verb: to beget (of a man); to bear or conceive (of a woman).

Verb (1)

engender (third-person singular simple present engenders, present participle engendering, simple past and past participle engendered)

(obsolete, transitive) To beget (of a man); to bear or conceive (of a woman).
- O Error ſoone conceyu’d,
  Thou neuer com’ſt vnto a happy byrth,
  But kil’ſt the Mother that engendred thee.1599 (first performance), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Iulius Cæsar”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward]...
Synonyms:

father, give birth, mother, sire
(transitive) To give existence to, to produce (living creatures).
- Like all interesting literary figures, he is full of tacit as well as of uttered reference to the conditions that engendered him[…].1891, Henry James, “James Russell Lowell”, in Essays in London and Elsewhere, page 60
Synonyms:

birth, spawn
(transitive) To bring into existence (a situation, quality, result etc.); to give rise to, cause, create.
- ME thinkes vertue is another manner of thing, and much more noble than the inclinations vnto goodneſſe, which in vs are ingendered.1603, Michel de Montaigne, “Of Crueltie”, in John Florio, transl., The Essayes […], book II, London: […] Val[entine] Simmes for Edward Blount […], →OCLC, page 243
- Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart managed to engender "Better Be Good to Me" and "I Must Love You," but they were neither lyrically nor musically up to standards of their Garrick Gaieties or A Connecticut Yankee.1928 October 8, “New Plays in Manhattan”, in Time
Synonyms:

assemble, beget, conjure, craft, create, generate, invent, make, manufacture, produce
(intransitive) To assume form; to come into existence; to be caused or produced.
- Thick Clouds are ſpread, and Storms engender there,
  And Thunders Voice, which wretched Mortals fear,
  And Winds that on their Wings, cold Winter bear.a. 1700, “Ovid’s Metamorphoses”, in John Dryden, transl., Poems on Various Occasions; and Translations from Several Authors, London: Jacob Tonson, published 1701, book I, page 147
Synonyms:

materialize, take form, appear, arise, be born, become, rise, come into being, emerge, form
(intransitive, obsolete) To copulate, to have sex.
- But that the bodies of the Reprobate, who make the Kingdome of Satan, ſhall alſo be glorious, or ſpirituall bodies, or that they ſhall bee as the Angels of God, neither eating, nor, drinking, nor engendering[…], there is no place of Scripture to prove it[…]1651, Thomas Hobbes, “Of the Kingdome of Darknesse”, in Leviathan, Or The Matter Forme, & Power of a Common-Wealth Ecclesiasticall and Civill, London: Andrew Crooke, page 343
- I fled, but he purſu’d (though more, it ſeems,
  Inflam’d with luſt then rage) and ſwifter far,
  Me overtook his mother all diſmaid,
  And in embraces forcible and foule
  Ingendring with me, of that rape begot
  Theſe yelling Monſters that with ceaſleſs cry
  Surround me, as thou ſawſt[…]1667, John Milton, “Book II”, in Paradise Lost. […], London: […] [Samuel Simmons], and are to be sold by Peter Parker […]; [a]nd by Robert Boulter […]; [a]nd Matthias Walker, […], →OCLC; republished...
Synonyms:

do it, get it on, have sex, approach, cohabit, common, company, copulate, couple, engage in sex

Verb (2)

engender (third-person singular simple present engenders, present participle engendering, simple past and past participle engendered)

(critical theory) To endow with gender; to create gender or enhance the importance of gender.
- Gender, they emphasize, is socially constructed by our surroundings. We are en-gendered by our families, our teachers, and by the images in our music, films, media and fashions.1981 April 11, Group Material Collective Changing Arttistic Definitions, “Philip Shehadi”, in Gay Community News, page 6
- As such they are an important way of understanding both how texts are engendered (how they articulate particular sex or gender role) and how they engender their consumers.1992, Anne Cranny-Francis, Engendered Fictions, page 2

engender meaning in Tamil, Urdu, Malayalam and Kannada

engender in Tamil

உருவாக்குதல்

engender in Urdu

پیداکرنا, وجود میں لانا

engender in Malayalam

ഉളവാക്കുക, മുളയ്ക്കുക, ജനിപ്പിക്കുക, ഉല്പാദിപ്പിക്കുക, ഹേതുവാകുക

engender in Kannada

ಉಂಟುಮಾಡು, ಆಗಿಸು, ಜನ್ಮಕೊಡು, ಹುಟ್ಟಿಸು, ಹುಟ್ಟಿಸಲು ಕಾರಣವಾಗು

Examples of engender in a sentence

It's also about a sense of involvement and achievement engendered by shaping and crafting useful, interesting, well-designed things.2009 December 21, Jonathan Glancey, “The art of industry”, in The Guardian:
I focus on […] the efforts of feminist critics of science to examine the engendered origins and implications of scientific rationality and modern epistemology.1996, Steven C Ward, Reconfiguring Truth, page xviii:

All 26 example sentences with engender

Synonyms of engender

30 more synonymsFewer synonyms

All synonyms of engender

Forms of engender

third-person singular present	engenders
present participle	engendering
past participle	engendered
past	engendered
alternative form	engendre
alternative form	ingender

Past tense of engender: engendered

Origin of engender

From Middle English engendren, from Old French engendrer, from Latin ingenerāre.

From en- + gender.

Words formed from engender

Words that rhyme with engender

24 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about engender

What does engender mean?: Engender means to beget (of a man); to bear or conceive (of a woman).
What is engender in Tamil?: Engender in Tamil is உருவாக்குதல். See Engender meaning in Tamil.
How do you use engender in a sentence?: It's also about a sense of involvement and achievement engendered by shaping and crafting useful, interesting, well-designed things.
What part of speech is engender?: Engender is a verb.
How do you pronounce engender?: Engender is pronounced /ɪnˈdʒɛn.də/ (UK).
What is the past tense of engender?: The past tense of engender is engendered.

Words near engender in the dictionary

Adapted from Wiktionary: engender (page history and authors); engender (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); engender (Urdu Wiktionary) (page history and authors); engender (Malayalam Wiktionary) (page history and authors); engender (Kannada Wiktionary) (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: 2026-09-02

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-us-engender.ogg, en-au-engender.ogg.

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