Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • intransitive verb To produce offspring; reproduce.
  • intransitive verb To produce (offspring); reproduce.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • To beget; generate; engender; produce: as, to procreate children.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • transitive verb To generate and produce; to beget; to engender.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • verb transitive To beget or conceive (offspring).
  • verb transitive To originate, create or produce something.
  • verb intransitive To reproduce.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • verb have offspring or produce more individuals of a given animal or plant

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Latin prōcreāre, prōcreāt- : prō-, forward; see pro– + creāre, to create; see ker- in Indo-European roots.]

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Examples

  • For those who after the flesh beget children in the flesh, must necessarily seek fleshly and earthly heirs to their fleshly and earthly inheritance; but those who by the spiritual seed of the Word procreate spiritual sons to God, must of like necessity be spiritual in every thing which they do.

    The Early Middle Ages 500-1000 Robert Brentano 1964

  • Plainly, the ability or desire to procreate is not a prerequisite for marriage.

    Constitutional Issues 2007

  • In a world where the ability to procreate is non-existent?

    Filmstalker: Children of Men first reviews 2006

  • It also builds on Skinner v. Oklahoma, which held that the state could not sterilize convicts for certain crimes because the right to procreate is fundamental.

    Balkinization 2003

  • It also builds on Skinner v. Oklahoma, which held that the state could not sterilize convicts for certain crimes because the right to procreate is fundamental.

    Balkinization 2003

  • If people choose not to procreate, that is ultimately their choice, and one that they are largely making on their own, of sound mind — or, rather, as sound a mind as people in this quirky human rage generally have.

    The Rise Of Feminism And The Fall Of The Family: Part 2 « Unambiguously Ambidextrous 2008

  • Everyone who knows what "procreate" means is laughing at those who don't right now.

    Sound Off: The Happening - What Did You Think? « FirstShowing.net 2008

  • If this, indeed, is rooted from fact, than I must warn these young wippersnappers that they better control their urges to "procreate", because the public humiliation of setting off the alarm at the wrong object fire hydrant, school mascot, your mother will scar you for life.

    Paranoid Pedestrian Ponderings 2003

  • In the 1940s, the Court ruled that the right to procreate is a fundamental right and declared unconstitutional an Oklahoma law that required the sterilization of those convicted three times of crimes involving moral turpitude.

    The Conservative Assault on the Constitution Erwin Chemerinsky 2010

  • Unless the Court intended to overrule all of these decisions, it was clear at the time of Roe that the Constitution had long been interpreted as protecting basic aspects of personal autonomy as fundamental rights even though the rights to marry, procreate, and raise children are not mentioned in the text of the document.

    The Conservative Assault on the Constitution Erwin Chemerinsky 2010

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