Genesis

How to spell genesis

7 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce genesis

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does genesis mean?

1. nounThe origin, source, or point at which something first comes into being.

Genesis in a sentence

• The genesis of the company can be traced to a single garage workshop.

• A late-night conversation was the genesis of their entire business plan.

Where does genesis come from?

Language of origin: Greek

This word comes straight from the Greek genesis, which literally meant 'origin', 'source', or 'coming into being', and was built on the verb gignesthai, 'to be born' or 'to come to be'. The same gen root, carrying the idea of birth and production, runs through a whole family of familiar English words such as 'gene', 'genus', 'generate', 'genetic', and 'generation'. The word reached English in its modern form largely through Latin, where genesis was adopted as the title of the first book of the Hebrew scriptures, the book that opens with the creation of the world. From that scriptural use it broadened into general English by the 1600s to mean the origin or starting point of anything. The spelling trap lies in the unstressed middle vowel and the soft ending: it is gen-e-sis, with an 'e' in the middle and the ending '-esis', not '-isis' or '-asis'.

How the word is built

• gen- (root: birth, origin, coming into being)
• -esis (Greek noun suffix denoting a process or state)