What does beget mean?
Beget is a transitive verb with two related meanings: its original, literal sense of fathering a child, and its extended sense of giving rise to or bringing something into existence. In contemporary usage the literal sense is rare and chiefly biblical or historical, appearing in genealogies such as 'Abraham begat Isaac.' Far more common today is the figurative use, in which one thing produces another: 'misunderstanding begets hostility,' or 'success begets success.' The word carries a formal, even archaic register, lending gravity to whatever it describes, and it is most at home in literary, philosophical, or rhetorical contexts rather than everyday conversation. Its inflections are irregular: the past tense is 'begot' and the past participle is 'begotten,' forms familiar from the King James Bible. Derived nouns include 'begetter,' meaning a father or originator. Because it concisely expresses the idea that actions and conditions tend to reproduce themselves, beget remains valuable despite its age, particularly in discussions of causation, consequence, and generational transmission.
To father a child; to procreate.
"The king sought an heir, praying for a son to beget."
This literal sense is now largely restricted to biblical, legal-historical, or deliberately archaic contexts.
To give rise to or bring about something abstract.
"Prosperity often begets complacency."
Commonly appears in the pattern 'X begets Y,' emphasizing how one condition tends to produce another.
The Bible's most famous genealogy line — 'Abraham begat Isaac' — kept this ancient verb alive for centuries, and it still powers the phrase 'violence begets violence.'
Reviewed by Deb Chak, Editor. AI-assisted content curated by RJS Tech Solutions LLP.
Etymology of beget
Beget derives from Old English 'begietan,' formed from the prefix 'be-' plus 'gietan,' meaning 'to get,' making it literally 'to get' or 'to obtain' a child. It is thus cognate with the common English verb 'get,' which shares the same Germanic root. The word has been part of English since the earliest recorded stages of the language and appears throughout medieval and early modern religious texts, which helped preserve its literal procreative sense long after it faded from ordinary speech.
Related word forms
How beget is actually used
Beget is formal and somewhat archaic. In modern English it survives chiefly in literary, biblical, or elevated registers, and in the idiomatic pattern 'X begets Y.' The past tense 'begot' and past participle 'begotten' are strongly associated with biblical genealogies.
Easily confused with beget
'Beset' means to surround or trouble persistently, while 'beget' means to father a child or to cause something to come into being.