Definitions

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

  • noun Future generations.
  • noun All of a person's descendants.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun Descendants collectively; the race that proceeds from a progenitor.
  • noun Succeeding generations collectively.
  • noun Posteriority.
  • noun Synonyms Issue, Progeny, etc. See offspring.

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

  • noun The race that proceeds from a progenitor; offspring to the furthest generation; the aggregate number of persons who are descended from an ancestor of a generation; descendants; -- contrasted with ancestry.
  • noun Succeeding generations; future times.

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

  • noun All the future generations, especially the descendants of a specific person.

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

  • noun all of the offspring of a given progenitor
  • noun all future generations

Etymologies

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

[Middle English posterite, from Old French, from Latin posteritās, from posterus, coming after; see posterior.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

Late 14th century, from Middle French posterité, from Latin posteritas, from posterus ("following, coming after"), from post ("after") (English post-).

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