Word of the Day

: August 5, 2009

philoprogenitive

adjective fill-uh-proh-JEN-uh-tiv

What It Means

1 : tending to produce offspring : prolific

2 : of, relating to, or characterized by love of offspring

philoprogenitive in Context

"As the multitudes born in the philoprogenitive years following World War II leave the labor force after 2010, the retired population will mushroom." (A.F. Ehrbar, Fortune, August 1980)

Did You Know?

"Philoprogenitive" (a combination of "phil-," meaning "loving" or "having an affinity for," and Latin "progenitus," meaning "begot" or "begotten") can refer to the production of offspring or to the loving of them. Nineteenth-century phrenologists used the word to designate the "bump" or "organ" of the brain believed to be the seat of a parent's instinctual love for his or her children. Despite the word's scientific look and sound, however, it appears, albeit not very frequently, in all types of writing -- technical, literary, informal, and otherwise.