progeny
nounUK /ˈpɹɒd͡ʒəni/ · US /ˈpɹɑd͡ʒəni/
Etymology From Middle English progenie, from Old French progenie, from Latin prōgeniēs, from prōgignō (“beget”).
1
Offspring or descendants considered as a group.
- I treasure this five-generation photograph of my great-great grandmother and her progeny.
- I should premise that I use the term Struggle for Existence in a large and metaphorical sense, including dependence of one being on another, and including (which is more important) not only the life of the individual, but success in leaving progeny.1859, Charles Darwin, On the Origin of Species:
1 more example
- One worm on a single plate can give rise to thousands of progeny after just a week or so.2020, Brandon Taylor, Real Life, Daunt Books Originals, page 88:
2
Obsolete Descent, lineage, ancestry.
- Beſides, all French and France exclaimes on thee, / Doubting thy Birth and lawfull Progenie. / Who ioyn’ſt thou with, but with a Lordly Nation, / That will not truſt thee, but for profits ſake ?1591 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The First Part of Henry the Sixt”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act III, scene iii], page 109, column 1:
3
Figuratively A result of a creative effort.
- His dissertation is his most important intellectual progeny to date.
- Synonyms
- binary clone, descendant(s), fruit of one's loins, get, issue, lineage, offspring
- Derived terms
- interprogeny, progenate
- Related terms
- progenitive, progenitor