progeny - Wiktionary, the free dictionary (original) (raw)

From Wiktionary, the free dictionary

From Middle English progenie, from Old French progenie, from Latin prōgeniēs, from prōgignō (“beget”).

progeny (countable and uncountable, plural progenies)

  1. (uncountable) Offspring or descendants considered as a group.
    I treasure this five-generation photograph of my great-great grandmother and her progeny.
    • 1859, Charles Darwin, On the Origin of Species:
      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.
    • 2020, Brandon Taylor, Real Life, Daunt Books Originals, page 88:
      One worm on a single plate can give rise to thousands of progeny after just a week or so.
  2. (uncountable, obsolete) Descent, lineage, ancestry.
  3. (countable, figurative) A result of a creative effort.
    His dissertation is his most important intellectual progeny to date.

offspring