procreate (English)

Where does "procreate" come from?

The English verb procreate traces its roots to Latin, where the perfect passive participle 'prōcreātus' derived from the verb 'prōcreō', meaning to beget[1][2]. The Latin verb itself combines 'pro-' with 'creo'[3]. In English, the word first appeared in the Middle English period as the adjective 'procreat(e)', meaning begotten or procreated, with the verb form following by 1525[1].

Full etymology tree

• procreate (English), 'To beget or conceive (offsprings).'
  • borrowed procreatus (Latin), 'begotten'
    • derived procreo (Latin), 'to beget, generate, procreate, produce'
      • prefix pro- (Latin), 'forward direction, forward movement'
      • derived creo (Latin), 'to create, to give existence to, to form, to make, to produce, to originate out of other materials or (post-Classical) out of nihility (transitively)'

Ancestors

• *per- (Proto-Indo-European)
• procreatus (Latin)

Descendants and derived words

• nonprocreating (English)
• procreater (English)
• unprocreated (English)

Sources

1. procreate (English) - Wiktionary
2. procreatus (Latin) - Wiktionary
3. procreo (Latin) - Wiktionary

Updated September 2026

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Etymology data from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0 · About Miraris