Generator

How to spell generator

9 letters · 4 syllables

How to pronounce generator

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does generator mean?

1. nounA machine that converts mechanical or other energy into electrical power, often used as a backup supply.
2. nounA person or thing that produces or causes something.

Generator in a sentence

• The hospital switched to its backup generator during the storm.

• Tourism is the main generator of income for the small coastal town.

• They hired a portable generator to power the outdoor wedding.

• The new website became a reliable generator of sales leads.

Where does generator come from?

Language of origin: Latin

The word comes from the Latin verb generare, meaning 'to beget, produce, or bring into being', which was itself built on genus, meaning 'birth, kind, or race'. The agent suffix -ator was added to mark 'a thing or person that produces', giving the sense of something that generates. English adopted 'generator' in the 1600s, at first for any person or thing that brings something into existence. With the rise of electrical engineering in the nineteenth century, the word narrowed to its now-dominant meaning: a machine that produces electricity. The same genus root survives in a crowd of familiar relatives such as 'generate', 'genus', 'genuine', and 'genre', and remembering that gener- core helps keep the single middle 'e' and the agent ending -ator in place.

How the word is built

• gener- (from genus/generare: kind, to produce)
• -ator (agent suffix: one that does)