genesis
(ˈdʒɛnɪsɪs)
[a. L. genesis, a. Gr. γένεσις origin, creation, generation, f. *γεν- root of γίγνεσθαι to come into being, be born. Usu. with lower-case initial in mod. use (exc. sense 1).]
1. (With initial capital.) The first in order of the books of the Old Testament, containing the account of the creation of the world.
The name was given by the Gr. translators, and retained in the Vulgate; in quot. 1225 Genesi is the Latin ablative.
| c 1000 ælfric On O. & N. Test. (Gr.) 3/18 Fif bec he awrat mid wundorlicum dihte. seo forme ys Genesis. a 1225 Ancr. R. 54 A meiden also het was, Jacobes douhter, hit telleð ine Genesi, eode vt uor to biholden uncuðe wummen. c 1250 Gen. & Ex. 2522 Ðe boc ðe is hoten genesis. 1362 Langl. P. Pl. A. vii. 219 Go to Genesis the Ieaunt, engendrure of vs alle. 1533 Gau Richt Vay 33 It is writine in the first chaiptur of Genesis [etc.]. 1649 Roberts Clavis Bibl. 6 Genesis, i.e. Generation, so called by the Greek; partly because it sets forth the Generations of the heavens and of the earth, in their first creation; partly because it describes the Genealogie of the Patriarchs. 1682 Dryden Medal, Epist. to Whigs, He has damned me in your cause from Genesis to the Revelations. 1885 Huxley Coll. Ess. (1893) IV. 157 Those modern representatives of Sisyphus, the reconcilers of Genesis with science. |
allusively (see 4).
| 1614 T. Adams Wks. (1861) I. 227 Every man that hath his Genesis must have his Exodus, and they that are born must die. |
† 2. Astrol. Nativity, horoscope. Obs.
| c 1375 Sc. Leg. Saints, Clement 434 Inpossible thing is, þat ocht be done but genesis [L. extra genesin]. 1624 B. Jonson Fortunate Isles A 4 a, Hauing obseru'd your Genesis, He would not liue. 1652 Gaule Magastrom. 347 Vespasian being admonished, by the mathematicians, to take heed of Metius Pomposianus, because he had an imperiall genesis [etc.] [L. genesim imperatoriam Suet. Vesp. 14]. |
† 3. = synthesis (orig. with reference to geometry, opposed to analysis; see Aristotle Eth. Nic. iii. iii). Cf. quot. 1654 s.v. genetical. Obs.
| 1612 Brinsley Lud. Lit. 108 Hereby schollars may haue daily much sure practice both of Analysis and Genesis; that is, resoluing and making Latine: which as was noted, all the learned doe acknowledge to bee almost all in all, in getting all learning. 1674 S. Jeake Arith. (1696) 358 Thus much may suffice for the Genesis. Now for the Analysis. |
4. Origin, mode of formation or production (very freq. in mod. usage, esp. with reference to the origin of the universe and its parts, or of natural and mental phenomena).
| 1604 R. Cawdrey Table Alph. (1613), Genesis, beginning. 1675 R. Burthogge Causa Dei 380 A Custom bottomed upon the Great Originist, and that account he gives us of the Genesis and Rise of things. 1678 Cudworth Intell. Syst. i. iv. §14. 238 All which genesis or generation of gods is really nothing but a poetical description of the cosmogonia. a 1734 North Exam. i. ii. §11 (1740) 36 It seems the Author himself was in the Dark as to the Genesis of this Speech. 1817 Coleridge Biog. Lit. 138, I shall now proceed to the nature and genesis of the imagination. 1831 Carlyle Sart. Res. (1858) 49 To the Genesis of our Clothes-Philosopher, then, be this First Chapter consecrated. 1838–9 Hallam Hist. Lit. III. viii. iii. §17. 404 Harriott arrived at a complete theory of the genesis of equations. 1864 Bowen Logic v. 119 It explains only the genesis, not the nature, of the Categories. 1885 Clodd Myths & Dr. i. i. 5 The theory of evolution must embrace the genesis and development of mind. |
† b. Math. = generation. Obs.
| 1706 W. Jones Syn. Palmar. Matheseos 224 The Genesis of Solids may be exhibited in various ways. 1721 Bailey, Genesis [in Geometry] is the Forming of any Figure, plain, or solid. 1726 tr. Gregory's Astron. I. 205 An Account of the Genesis, Nature and Uses of the Celestial Equinoctial. |
Hence geˈnesic a., pertaining to genesis or origin (cf. F. génésique); Geˈnesiac, Geneˈsiacal, Geneˈsitic adjs., belonging to the Book of Genesis (cf. F. génésiaque).
| 1849–52 Todd Cycl. Anat. IV. 1236/1 Of the progress of the genesic phenomena, there is as yet but little clearly known. 1856 R. F. Burton El-Medinah III. 335 The Genesitic account of the Great Patriarch has suggested to learned men the idea of two Abrahams. 1877 Dawson Orig. World ii. 56 Before the ‘waters’ (and here is the peculiar error of the genesiacal bard) some of the ancients claimed the pre-existence of light [etc.]. 1892 E. C. Stedman in Century Mag. XLIV. 669 We then comprehend the full purport of the Genesitic record—‘ye shall be as gods’. 1895 Month Nov. 372 She [the Church] has so far acquiesced in the larger interpretations of Genesiacal cosmogony that now the six-day theory would be very unsafe. 1896 Tablet 27 June 1014 The Genesiac days of creation. |