Word.ws English Dictionary

only-begotten

only-begotten adjective: being the only child of one’s parent (especially one’s father).

Adjective

only-begotten (not comparable)

  1. Being the only child of one’s parent (especially one’s father)
  2. One of the attributes of Jesus Christ, the only-begotten Son of God the Father.
    • Niceno-Constantinopolitan Creed
      And [we believe] in one Lord Jesus Christ, the only-begotten Son of God.

Origin of only-begotten

From Middle English oonlybigeten, equivalent to only + begotten. Compare also Middle English only geten, oonly geten (“only-begotten”, literally “only-gotten”) and Middle English onbygoten, oon be-gotyn, one bygeten, oon bigetun, oon bigeten (“only-begotten”, literally “one-begotten”). Calque of Latin ūnigenitus, itself a calque of Ancient Greek μονογενής (monogenḗs).

Questions about only-begotten

What does only-begotten mean?
Only-begotten means being the only child of one’s parent (especially one’s father).
What part of speech is only-begotten?
Only-begotten is an adjective.

Words near only-begotten in the dictionary

  1. only sons
  2. only the good die young
  3. only time will tell
  4. only too
  5. only trotting after
  6. only-begotten
  7. onlyborn
  8. onlyborns
  9. onlyer
  10. onlyers
  11. OnlyFans

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: only-begotten (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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