Definition of "generation" []

• All of the offspring that are at the same stage of descent from a common ancestor: Mother and daughters represent two generations. (noun)
• Biology A form or stage in the life cycle of an organism: asexual generation of a fern. (noun)
• The average interval of time between the birth of parents and the birth of their offspring. (noun)
• A group of individuals born and living about the same time. (noun)
• A group of generally contemporaneous individuals regarded as having common cultural or social characteristics and attitudes: "They're the television generation” ( Roger Enrico). (noun)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

• "But where, as in the present section, we treat the descent theory apart from the evolution theory, we have also to think of the possibility that the species or groups of species are not originated through gradual development, but nevertheless do originate through descent -- namely, in leaps through metamorphosis of germs or a heterogenetic generation; and for such an idea we find confirmation in the {74} observation of the history of development of animals, which we call _change of generation_ or"
• "It might be safe and legitimate enough, when we find a fossil organism imbedded in the earth, to ascribe its production to the ordinary law of generation, even although we had not witnessed the fact of its birth, provided the same species is known to have existed previously; but when we find _new races_ coming into being, for which the ordinary law of derivation cannot account, we are not at liberty to apply the same rule to a case so essentially different, and still less to postulate _a spontaneous generation_, or a _transmutation of species_, for which we have no experience at all."
• "$self = ~ s / my \$generation = (\d+); / 'my $generation ='."