| generation | 1. The act of generating or begetting; procreation, as of animals. 2. Origination by some process, mathematical, chemical, or vital; production; formation; as, the generation of sounds, of gases, of curves, etc. 3. That which is generated or brought forth; progeny; offspiring. 4. A single step or stage in the succession of natural descent; a rank or remove in genealogy. Hence: The body of those who are of the same genealogical rank or remove from an ancestor; the mass of beings living at one period; also, the average lifetime of man, or the ordinary period of time at which one rank follows another, or father is succeeded by child, usually assumed to be one third of a century; an age. "This is the book of the generations of Adam." (Gen. V. 1) "Ye shall remain there [in Babylon] many years, and for a long season, namely, seven generations." (Baruch vi. 3) "All generations and ages of the Christian church." (Hooker) 5. Race; kind; family; breed; stock. "Thy mother's of my generation; what's she, if I be a dog?" (Shak) 6. <geometry> The formation or production of any geometrical magnitude, as a line, a surface, a solid, by the motion, in accordance with a mathematical law, of a point or a magnitude; as, the generation of a line or curve by the motion of a point, of a surface by a line, a sphere by a semicircle, etc. 7. <biology> The aggregate of the functions and phenomene which attend reproduction. There are four modes of generation in the animal kingdom: scissiparity or by fissiparous generation, gemmiparity or by budding, germiparity or by germs, and oviparity or by ova. <biology> Alternate generation, the fancied production of living organisms without previously existing parents from inorganic matter, or from decomposing organic matter, a notion which at one time had many supporters; abiogenesis. Origin: OE. Generacioun, F. Generation, fr.L. Generatio. Source: Websters Dictionary (01 Mar 1998) |
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| generation effect | Variation in health status arising from the different causal factors of disease to which each successive generation born is exposed as it passes through life. (05 Mar 2000) |
| generation time | <cell biology> Time taken for a cell population to double in numbers and thus equivalent to the average length of the cell cycle. (18 Nov 1997) |
| parental generation | The parents of a mating, commonly experimental, involving contrasting genotypes; the original mating of a genetic experiment; parents of the F1 generation. (05 Mar 2000) |
| virgin generation | <biology> Development of an ovum without fusion of its nucleus with a male pronucleus to form a zygote. (18 Nov 1997) |
| sexual generation | Reproduction by conjugation, or the union of male and female cells, as opposed to asexual generation. (05 Mar 2000) |
| skipped generation | A phenomenon of pedigrees in which a gene is transmitted from one affected person to another through a phenotypically unaffected person, as by recessivity (especially for X-linked traits), epistasis, variable expressivity, or absence of an environmental challenge such as a toxin. Except at a crass phenotypic level (e.g., clinical or commercial) this term becomes progressively less useful as the mechanisms are elucidated. (05 Mar 2000) |
| spontaneous generation | The obsolete hypothesis that living organisms can originate from nonliving matter. (09 Oct 1997) |
| nonsexual generation | Reproduction by fission, gemmation, or in any other way without union of the male and female cell, or conjugation. See: parthenogenesis. Synonym: heterogenesis, nonsexual generation. (05 Mar 2000) |
| f-1 generation | <genetics> Filial-One generation. The first generation of offspring which results after mating or genetically crossing two types of parents with different genotypes or phenotypes. (The parents are known as the P generation.) (09 Oct 1997) |
| f-2 generation | <genetics> Filial-Two generation. The generation of offspring which results from mating or genetically crossing members of the F-1 generation to each other. Members of this generation are two generations removed from the original parent generation, or the P generation. (09 Oct 1997) |
| filial generation | The offspring of a genetically specified mating: first filial generation (symbol F1), the offspring of parents of contrasting genotypes; second filial generation (F2), the offspring of two F1 individuals; third filial generation (F3), fourth filial generation (F4), etc., the offspring in succeeding generation's of continued inbreeding of F1 descendents. (05 Mar 2000) |
| burns, second degree | Second degree burns look similar to the first degree burns in that it is red and sensation is intact; however, the damage is severe enough to cause blistering of the skin and the pain is usually somewhat more intense. (12 Dec 1998) |
| centimeter-gram-second system | The scientific system of expressing the fundamental physical units of length, mass, and time, and those units derived from them, in centimeters, grams, and seconds; currently being replaced by the International System of Units based on the meter, kilogram, and second. (05 Mar 2000) |
| centimeter-gram-second unit | <unit> An absolute unit of the centimeter-gram-second system. (05 Mar 2000) |