engender
Americanverb (used with object)
verb (used without object)
verb
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(tr) to bring about or give rise to; produce or cause
-
to be born or cause to be born; bring or come into being
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
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engendersimple
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engenderssimple
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have engenderedperfect
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has engenderedperfect
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am engenderingprogressive
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are engenderingprogressive
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is engenderingprogressive
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have been engenderingperfect progressive
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has been engenderingperfect progressive
Past
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engenderedsimple
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had engenderedperfect
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was engenderingprogressive
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were engenderingprogressive
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had been engenderingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of engender
First recorded in 1275–1325; Middle English, from Old French engendrer, from Latin ingenerāre, from in- en- 1 + generāre “to beget” ( see generate)
Explanation
Engender is a fancy way of saying "to make happen," like when you engender the spirit of teamwork and cooperation by encouraging others and doing your share of the group's work. The verb engender has nothing to do with being male or female, though originally, it did mean "beget, procreate." Today, engender means "to produce or bring about." When students come to class prepared, meaning they've read their assignment, this engenders better class discussions, just as mutual trust and the desire to help each other engenders a meaningful friendship.
Vocabulary lists containing engender
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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:
It could engender pride and joy at your stealthy maneuvers, indifference, resentment or using the friendship as collateral for a loan.
From MarketWatch ● May 26, 2026
“Judges should not have to worry when they rule against the president that the ruling will engender real personal threats,” Vladeck concluded.
From Salon ● Feb. 28, 2026
Perhaps the act of being prescribed a medication and taking it would engender a different hope, one that might work about as well as any other placebo.
From Slate ● Jan. 30, 2026
Three orchestral concerts and a chamber recital at Carnegie Hall would normally engender nothing but pride from the musicians in question and reverence from audiences.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 20, 2025
Much too, you will think, reader, to engender jealousy: if a woman, in my position, could presume to be jealous of a woman in Miss Ingram’s.
From "Jane Eyre" by Charlotte Brontë
Sustained success engenders unity, and new traditions will emerge.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 23, 2026
He says the hope it engenders can not only help people cope emotionally with a cancer diagnosis but can even motivate them to seek treatment.
From Slate ● Mar. 29, 2026
Deciding what content is acceptable on social media platforms "engenders considerable debate among reasonable people about where to draw the correct proverbial line," X said.
From BBC ● Jun. 17, 2025
Becoming a mother engenders a brutal kind of honesty, says Heller, one that she tried to capture in “Nightbitch.”
From Los Angeles Times ● Dec. 4, 2024
The silence this stigma engenders among family members, neighbors, friends, relatives, co-workers, and strangers is perhaps the most painful—yet least acknowledged—aspect of the new system of control.
From "The New Jim Crow" by Michelle Alexander
These include the shifts in audience habits engendered by the pandemic and the explosion of streaming, which has seen viewers choosing to stay on the couch.
From Barron's ● Apr. 13, 2026
The daring enterprise has engendered a host of grand theories about Mr. Trump’s strategic decision-making, the ideas behind it, and its implications.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jan. 5, 2026
For some, this has engendered a sense of paralysis.
From MarketWatch ● Oct. 21, 2025
Tucked away in semirural settings away from the urban core, both communities, despite their dramatic demographic differences, share an insularity that engendered strong identities and also made them vulnerable.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jan. 22, 2025
“They’re not engendered by the stimuli-questions; no. Although biologically they exist. Potentially.”
From "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?" by Philip K. Dick
And Kenny Scharf’s cartoon-infused painting and sculpture are paeans to arrested development that are about as capable of engendering childlike wonder as a tax return.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Nov. 21, 2025
The fact that Tilly Norwood and the company behind ChatGPT are simultaneously engendering such controversy is not a coincidence: This is an existential moment for human-created entertainment as we know it.
From Slate ● Oct. 1, 2025
The HIV/AIDS crisis also devastated a generation of people, destroying social communities and engendering a need to rebuild.
From Seattle Times ● Dec. 13, 2023
Occasionally, I wished that the emphasis would have shifted more to the drama than to the religious feeling it was engendering in the company.
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 8, 2023
He added as a self-evident proposition, engendering low spirits, “But you can’t marry, you know, while you’re looking about you.”
From "Great Expectations" by Charles Dickens
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.
