beget

verb

1. (literary, transitive)To produce or bring forth (a child); to be a parent of; to father or sire.

   “The King intends to beget a child within the next five years.”

   “¶ And Adam liued an hundred and thirtie yeeres, and begate a ſonne in his owne likeneſſe, after his image; and called his name Seth.”

   “This ogress too was begotten of the blood of Cain, whose brood had been doomed forever to the icy floods and freezing waters of the earth.”

   “I believe good people beget good people. If you marry the right person, then you will have good children. But everywhere else in life, too, good people beget good people. In your work, when you hire good people, they, in turn, will hire good ...”

2. (transitive)To cause; to produce; to bring forth.

   “Wealth begets wealth; poverty begets poverty.”

   “How one’s thoughts will travel! and how quickly our wishes beget them!”

   “In the same way that Old Europe’s coffeehouses begat insurance companies, he says, today’s political careers beget an unhealthy relationship with throat lozenges.”

   “Rugby football was created in the early 1800s at England’s all-boys Rugby School. The sport begat American football, Gaelic football, Australian rules football and Association football (aka soccer).”

   “Violence begets violence, and the only people still remaining will do the very thing that the living were fighting to preserve during the battle against the Night King: They’ll remember, and keep the memory of this bloodbath alive.”

3. (obsolete, transitive)To get or obtain.

   “If there bee neuer a Seruant-monſter i' the Fayre, who can helpe it, he ſayes ; nor a neſt of Antiques ? Hee is loth to make Nature afraid in his Playes, like thoſe that beget Tales, Tempeſts, and ſuch like Drolleries, […]”

4. (UK, dialectal, transitive)To happen to; befall.