progeny
Americannoun
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a descendant or offspring, as a child, plant, or animal.
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such descendants or offspring collectively.
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something that originates or results from something else; outcome; issue.
noun
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the immediate descendant or descendants of a person, animal, etc
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a result or outcome
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
Etymology
Origin of progeny
1250–1300; Middle English progenie < Middle French < Latin prōgeniēs offspring, equivalent to prō- pro- 1 + gen-, base of gignere to beget (akin to kin ) + -iēs feminine noun suffix
Explanation
Progeny means "offspring" or "children." You and your brothers are the progeny of your parents, and your cat's new litter of kittens is her progeny. Synonyms for progeny include descendants, product, and offspring, so you're also your grandparents' and great-grandparents' progeny. And, if your pet goat has babies every spring, you'll get to raise dozens of her progeny. Plants have progeny too — blow the fluffy seeds of a dandelion in your yard and its progeny can multiply, summer after summer, until your lawn is full of cheerful yellow flowers.
Vocabulary lists containing progeny
A Midsummer Night's Dream
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Harry Potter and the Cursed Child
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We the People: Gen
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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.
And Standard Oil’s progeny formed the core of the “Seven Sisters” oil majors that divvied up among themselves the Middle East’s resources until the 1970s.
From Barron's • May 7, 2026
They are interested in and worry about their progeny, but are just as, if not more, concerned with their own problems and lives, which are continuing to unfold in very real, complicated and interesting ways.
From Los Angeles Times • Apr. 21, 2026
“It was an odd pairing: Harold Macmillan, the inhibited, repressed publisher’s son, and Bob Boothby, the warm, witty progeny of an Edinburgh banker,” writes Lynne Olson.
From The Wall Street Journal • Oct. 23, 2025
Rich men can afford to support lots of progeny they never have to see.
From Salon • Jun. 5, 2025
The experience “led to much coarse humor about production of monsters among our progeny in years to come,” Kamen recalled.
From "Big Science" by Michael Hiltzik
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.
