generational
adjEtymology From generation + -al.
1
Of, pertaining to, or changing over generations.
- The generational shift Mr. Obama once embodied is, in fact, well under way, but it will not change Washington as quickly — or as harmoniously — as a lot of voters once hoped.2012 November 7, Matt Bai, “Winning a Second Term, Obama Will Confront Familiar Headwinds”, in The New York Times, archived from the original on 16 Nov 2018:
2
Informal Exceptional; the best/worst of a generation; once-in-a-generation.
3
Informal Very good/bad (through semantic bleaching or weakening of the above sense).
- Mr Musk’s actions are worrying shareholders – a gesture he referred to as a “Roman salute” has not gone down well in Europe. In a recent survey of over 100,000 Germans, 94pc said they would never purchase a Tesla, while sales in their country were down 62pc during the first quarter of 2025 compared to the year before. … Gen Z investors on social media refer to errors like this as “a generational fumble”.2025 April 5, Josh Kirby, “Warren Buffett’s $230m bet on this Tesla killer changed the way I invest”, in The Telegraph, archived from the original on 07 Apr 2025:
- Derived terms
- bigenerational, cross-generational, extragenerational, generational change, generational conflict, generational curse, generational dynamics, generational lock-in, generationally, generational planet, generational wealth, intergenerational, intragenerational, monogenerational, multigenerational, nongenerational, Strauss-Howe generational theory, transgenerational, trigenerational, unigenerational