beget
Americanverb (used with object)
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begets,
present (3rd person singular)
-
begot,
past participle, past
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begat,
past (Archaic)
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begotten,
past participle (Archaic)
-
begetting
present participle
verb
-
to father
-
to cause or create
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
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begetsimple
-
begetssimple
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have begotperfect
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have begottenperfect
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has begotperfect
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has begottenperfect
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am begettingprogressive
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are begettingprogressive
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is begettingprogressive
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have been begettingperfect progressive
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has been begettingperfect progressive
Past
-
begatsimple
-
begotsimple
-
had begotperfect
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had begottenperfect
-
was begettingprogressive
-
were begettingprogressive
-
had been begettingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of beget
First recorded before 1000; Middle English begeten ( see be-, get); replacing Middle English biyeten, Old English begetan; cognate with Gothic bigitan, Old High German bigezzan
Explanation
To beget means to generate something, usually children, and it can be used to refer to the role of either a mother or a father. If we analyze the word beget, we get the prefix be-, which tends to intensify the meaning of the following verb, and get, which means to cause something to enter one's possession. The word is usually used to refer to having children, although it can be used to refer to anything that generates something else — for example, an inspiration can beget a brilliant idea.
Vocabulary lists containing beget
Motherlode: A Mother's Day Lexicon
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Words for Father's Day: What Fathers Do
Interested in learning more words like this one? Our team at Vocabulary.com has got you covered! You can review flashcards, quiz yourself, practice spelling, and more – and it's all completely free to use!
Words from Shakespearean Insults
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
“Boycotts can beget other boycotts, so there could be global risk to sales of U.S. business jets depending on how sentiment and behaviors change,” the Capital Alpha analysts wrote.
From MarketWatch ● Sep. 8, 2026
That creates a positive feedback loop — weaker winds beget more warm water shifting to the east, which weakens winds even more.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 13, 2026
In general, strong stock markets beget IPO booms, and cycles can be long-lasting.
From Barron's ● Jun. 12, 2026
Baelor of all people knows the smallfolk would react poorly to their beloved prince letting injustice beget more injustice.
From Salon ● Feb. 25, 2026
But while this description of the mechanism of heredity solved Mendel’s question—how does like beget like?—it failed to solve Darwin's converse riddle: How does like beget unlike?
From "The Gene" by Siddhartha Mukherjee
I always quote “beauty begets beauty,” and I can tell he does not read any literature or visit museums to stay sharp.
From MarketWatch ● Sep. 10, 2026
In markets, strength often begets more strength, or, as technicians like to say, trends once in motion tend to remain that way more likely than they are to reverse.
From Barron's ● Jan. 13, 2026
It’s unclear whether filmed Broadway shows like “Merrily” can become the new concert film, but as always in showbiz, success begets success.
From Los Angeles Times ● Dec. 5, 2025
The need to protect past lies begets new lies.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Nov. 11, 2025
Life begets life begets life begets life begets life.”
From "The Fault in Our Stars" by John Green
We learn how Iceland’s glaciers, essentially rivers of varying pace, begat their unique ecosystems, but also how they provided the breathtaking terrain upon which Magnason’s grandparents Hulda and Árni fell in love.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 5, 2026
Indian musicians began adapting their own classical music for steel guitar, and in Africa, the quest to replicate the glissando effect begat a local technique dubbed “Hauyani” after the word “Hawaiian.”
From Los Angeles Times ● Apr. 1, 2024
But that broken leg also begat the greatest comeback in NFL history and led to one of the gifts Smith gave Washington football fans — a rare Thanksgiving Day win over the Dallas Cowboys.
From Washington Times ● Nov. 22, 2023
Buffett and his music — and the empire they begat — became pivotal figures in that claiming and invention.
From Seattle Times ● Sep. 3, 2023
In fact, rather than Pythagoras’s triangle, there was a circle, or a cycle, at work: form begat information, and then information begat form.
From "The Gene" by Siddhartha Mukherjee
Then a funny thing happened after I retired and began winnowing my stuff in earnest: The resulting tidiness begot more tidiness.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 8, 2026
Meet the next Asian film fighting style that will clobber Hollywood slap-happy just as Hong Kong wire-fu spawned “The Matrix” and Indonesia’s “The Raid” begot “John Wick.”
From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 11, 2026
Losing Morgan Geekie, Daniel Sprong, Ryan Donato and Carson Soucy is tough for a team where depth begot success.
From Seattle Times ● Aug. 17, 2023
His gets begot bigger gets — the most prominent being his 2002 profile of Johnny Carson in Esquire.
From Washington Post ● Mar. 30, 2023
Here he married, built a great manor house, fathered Antiphates and Mantios, commanders both, of whom Antiphates begot Oikleies and Oikleies the firebrand Amphiaraos.
From "The Odyssey" by Homer
How great if this type of four-quadrant filmmaking didn’t have to cosplay as a begotten relic — if it could take courage from these dinosaurs and thrive in our modern times.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 12, 2026
Investment has begotten investment and driven philanthropic interest, with Gray’s organization poised to help build a $54 million, 219-unit affordable-housing complex.
From New York Times ● Nov. 18, 2021
“The creative inspiration people got from cheese boards has begotten creative inspiration for a lot of things,” she says.
From Washington Post ● Feb. 25, 2020
Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I., sent a detailed list of questions to Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh about his financial history this week, and those questions have now begotten further questions.
From Salon ● Sep. 13, 2018
But Roy had been begotten in the marriage bed, the bed that Paul described as holy, and it was to him the Kingdom had been promised.
From "Go Tell It on the Mountain" by James Baldwin
The slicing and dicing of available tables can mean there are only so many seats at the most sought-after establishments, begetting a sense of scarcity at the highest levels.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 7, 2026
That trend could itself be causing a vicious cycle of fewer children begetting fewer children, said Takuya Hoshino, senior economist at Dai-ichi Life Research Institute.
From Reuters ● Aug. 30, 2023
The son of a goddess and a prince, he carried the ancestral burden of begetting a lineage of rulers in a foreign land.
From Salon ● Feb. 6, 2022
We might just be at the very beginning of the reinforcing cycle of ambition begetting more commitment, which begets more ambition.
From New York Times ● Jun. 22, 2021
It’s a common fallacy to envision these species as arranged in a straight line of descent, with Ergaster begetting Erectus, Erectus begetting the Neanderthals, and the Neanderthals evolving into us.
From "Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind" by Yuval Noah Harari
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
