gen

G2E1N1
/d͡ʒɛn/

noun

Information.

CommonScrabble 4

Meanings

gen1

noungen (uncountable)
  1. CommonwealthIrelandUKinformaluncountableInformation.

    Nose around any modest-sized station and the odds are you'll find that the chargeman's office doubles as a bashers' club, a place where shivering spotters can get warm and catch up on the gen.

    2015, Nicholas Whittaker, Platform Souls: The Trainspotter as 20th-Century Hero
  2. uncountablebiologyInformation about the location of a bird.

    I had some recent gen that they had been seen quite recently at Kunoth Well, a little dot on the map on the edge of the Tanami Desert.

    2005, Sean Dooley, The Big Twitch, Sydney: Allen and Unwin, page 172
  3. slanguncountablelifestyleFan fiction that does not specifically focus on romance or sex.

    Synonyms: genfic

adjectivegen (not comparable)
  1. not comparablegeneral

gen2

noungen (plural gens)

plural gens

  1. Alternative letter-case form of Gen (“member of the Gen Movement”).

gen3

verbgen (third-person singular simple present gens, present participle genning, simple past and past participle genned)

present singular third person gens · participle present genning · participle past genned · past genned

  1. To generate using an automated process, especially a computer program.

    genned with a LLM

    4 more examples

    Defining the devices so that they will be genned during the sysgen and installation is the other half.

    1991, Bruce H. Hunter, Karen Bradford Hunter, UNIX Systems: Advanced Administration and Management Handbook

    The older, genned files are difficult to keep up-to-date and are unsupported for some newer NICs.

    1993, Debra R. Niedermiller-Chaffins, Drew Heywood, Inside Novell NetWare, →ISBN, page 100

    As the capacities of the large servers are exceeded, a new server is genned into the RAC cluster.

    2010, Donald K. Burleson, Oracle Tuning: The Definitive Reference, →ISBN, page 1109

    The Turing factories on Isis's small moon had fallen short of productivity goals, though another two factory units had been genned.

    2012, Robert Charles Wilson, Bios, →ISBN
noungen (plural gens)

plural gens

  1. slangA generator (device that converts mechanical to electrical energy).

    Synonyms: genny

gen4

verbgen (third-person singular simple present gens, present participle genning, simple past and past participle genned)

present singular third person gens · participle present genning · participle past genned · past genned

  1. literatureTo genetically engineer.

    Her nurturer ears, genned to be hyper-sensitive, had to be hurting from the noise.

    2011, Karen Sandler, Tankborn, →ISBN, page 28
    1 more example

    Samples could be taken from the original, and plans could be made, but genning could not be initiated until death had occurred.

    2008, Bart Dahmer, Primal Screams, →ISBN, page 36

gen5

noungen (plural gens)

plural gens

  1. UKobsoleteslangA shilling.

    "Give me two gen, then, and take the whole bloody tol. I've walked me teef orf afore rouf this mornin', and wot 'ave I got? Two bloody yenneps! I ask yer."

    1978, Rose Ayers, The Street Sparrows
    1 more example

    The betting also began to shift. "Sixpence Ned wins!" cried three or four; "Sixpence he loses!" answered another; "Done!" and up went the halfpence. "Half-a-crown Joe loses!"—"Here you are," answered Joe, but he lost again. "I'll try you a 'gen'" (shilling) said a coster; "And a 'rouf yenap'" (fourpence), added the other. "Say a 'exes'" (sixpence).—"Done!" and the betting continued, till the ground was spotted with silver and halfpence.

    1851, Henry Mayhew, “Gambling of Costermongers”, in London Labour and the London Poor, volume 1, page 17

gen6

noungen (plural gens)

plural gens

  1. informalA generation (group of people born in a specific range of years).

    It’s anyone’s guess whether such attitudes will persist into adulthood, but if Gen Z (and the gens to come) do prove more alco-skeptic than their forbears then the above twelve steps are deftly primed to cash in.

    2022 July 4, Ben Schott, “Is There Anything That Gen Z Won’t Drink?”, in The Washington Post
    1 more example

    "Mladenovic playing in what the young gen is calling a crop top, but what my gen is calling a bra," Bouchard tweeted. "Sign of the times that Wimbledon has no issue with that. Still can remember the year some had troubles because of 'too short' skirts lol."

    2022 June 28, “Wimbledon tennis: Fans react to Kristina Mladenovic's eye-catching outfit”, in The New Zealand Herald, archived from the original on 26 Oct 2022
  2. in compoundsinformalA specific version of something in a chronological sequence.

    For my fellow first-gens, get ready to hide a smirk, because your life story is likely hidden somewhere in this chapter. For the uninitiated—that is, the person who's never had a thing to do with the Arab way of doing things (namely dating)—I advise you to buckle up.

    2004, Sally Bishai, “Courtship, Marriage and the Ubiquitous ‘Dating Thing’”, in Mid-East Meets West: On Being and Becoming a Modern Arab American, Lincoln, Neb.: iUniverse, →ISBN, page 57
    2 more examples

    […] I witness firsthand the difficult "downstream" outcomes (Grusky 2014) of social class stratification in a university setting where approximately 3,400 undergraduates (13% of the undergraduate population) are first in their families to attend and/or graduate from college (first-gens). Most of these students are low income and nearly 1,200 first-gens have grown up in poverty.

    2016, Dwight Lang, “Witnessing Social Class in the Academy”, in Allison L. Hurst, Sandi Kawecka Nenga, editors, Working in Class: Recognizing How Social Class Shapes Our Academic Work, Lanham, Md.: Rowman & Littlefield, →ISBN, part 2 (Teaching), page 102

    The Family Values and Framing Strategy steps address soft issues as what is the purpose of the new investment strategy, is there a desire to engage and train the next generation (Next Gens), and is there building buy-in and engagement across the family members important to strengthen family unity.

    2017, Temple Fennell, “SCIE: Sustainable Cycle of Investing Engagement”, in Kirby Rosplock, The Complete Direct Investing Handbook: A Guide for Family Offices, Qualified Purchasers, and Accredited Investors (Bloomberg Financial Series), Hoboken, N.J.: John Wiley & Sons, →ISBN, page 242

gen7

adverbgen (not comparable)
  1. Internetabbreviationclippingnot comparableClipping of genuinely.

Gen8

proper noun
  1. A Niger-Congo language of Togo.

Gen9

nounGen (plural Gens)

plural Gens

  1. CatholicismA member of the Gen Movement, a youth expression of the international Focolare Movement.

Gen10

proper noun
  1. A female given name, a short form of Genevieve.

    Hal. Oh, don't fuss, Gen. I'll do my part all right. Mamma's 'structed me, you know. Genevieve. Instructed, Hal.

    1894, Harper's Young People, page 208
    1 more example

    “Gen? Listen, I'm so sorry I did that, Gen. You gotta believe me. I'm not like this and you know it.” “Listen...Kyle, I...I don't think I want to see you anymore.” Genevieve's voice cracked. “Gen!”

    2017, Emma G Prince, The Silent Life of Genevieve, →ISBN

Gen11

nounGen (plural Gens)

plural Gens

  1. alternativeAlternative form of Gen. (“General”).
    1 more example

    Particularly notable was the presence not just of Nato’s military chief, the American Gen Christopher Cavoli, but also Adm Sir Tony Radakin, Britain’s most senior military officer, who is now acknowledged in Washington and Kyiv as an increasingly important actor in helping Ukraine overcome the Russian invaders.

    2023 August 26, Dan Sabbagh, “‘That’s our guy’: how UK military chief became key Nato liaison in Ukraine”, in The Guardian, →ISSN

GEN12

nounGEN (plural GENs)

plural GENs

  1. USabbreviationinitialismeconomicsInitialism of group exemption number.

Synonyms & antonyms

nounFan fiction that does not specifically focus on romance or sex.

Similar

nounA generator (device that converts mechanical to electrical energy).

Similar

Origin

gen · noun, adjective

Clipping of general.

Full word history & related roots →

gen · verb, noun

Shortened from generate and generator.

Full word history & related roots →

gen · noun

Etymology unknown. Possibilities include: * Clipping of argent * Clipping of generalise, from back slang for English shilling.

Full word history & related roots →

Gen · noun

  1. Italiangenerazione nuova
  2. EnglishGen

Shortened from new generation, from Italian generazione nuova.

Full word history & related roots →

Rhymes & wordplay

Rhymes with gen

All rhymes →

Sounds the same

Anagrams

Cite this entry
APA

gen. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 2, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/gen

MLA

“gen.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/gen. Accessed November 2, 2026.

Chicago

WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “gen,” accessed November 2, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/gen.

Source: gen on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.