engender
/ɪnˈdʒɛndə
/ /ɛnˈdʒɛndə/verb [with object]
1Cause or give rise to (a feeling, situation, or condition): the issue engendered continuing controversy...
- Barnett is unable to lead, inspire or engender loyalty.
- We will build on our strengths and continue to engender a love of learning across all subjects for all our students.
- Many of these changes engender anxiety and fear.
Synonyms
cause, be the cause of, give rise to, bring about, lead to, result in, produce, create, generate, arouse, rouse, provoke, incite, kindle, trigger, spark off, touch off, stir up, whip up, induce, inspire, instigate, foment, effect, occasion, promote, foster
literary beget, enkindle
rare effectuate
1.1 archaic (Of a father) beget (offspring).I can not imagine returning home from watching a film and deciding to engender a child....
- Urging prospective fathers to take care that their seed is of the right temperature to engender children of a good physical and psychological temper, Charron offers them some practical advice.
- When, in turn, we biologically engender a child with a partner, the two parents are equally invested and morally responsible for the child.
Origin
Middle English (formerly also as ingender): from Old French engendrer, from Latin ingenerare, from in- 'in' + generare 'beget' (see generate).
gender from Late Middle English:
The words gender and engender (Middle English) go back via Old French to Latin genus ‘birth, family, nation’, a word that was reborrowed in the early 17th century for scientific classification, although it had been in use 50 years earlier in logic. In modern French the ‘d’ was lost to produce genre, a word reborrowed in the early 19th century. Generation (Middle English), generate (early 16th century), engender (Middle English), generosity (Late Middle English), genial (mid 16th century), and degenerate (Late Middle English) are all from the same source.