- offspring
- offspring, young, progeny, issue, descendant, posterity are comparable when they mean those who follow in direct parental line.Offspring applies to those who are by birth immediately related to a parent; the term does not necessarily apply to human beings, for it may refer to animals or sometimes to plants{
at each farrow the sow produces many offspring
}{the son endeavoring to appear the worthy offspring of such a father— Steele
}Young is used most often of the offspring of animals{a bear surrounded by its young
}{turtles bury their eggs in beaches and sandbanks and the young dig their way out when they hatch
}Progeny usually applies to the offspring of a father or a mother or of both; the term more often refers to those of human parentage, but it is used occasionally of the offspring of animals and plants{from this union sprang a vigorous progeny— Hawthorne
}In comparison with offspring, however, it has somewhat extended use, being sometimes applied to those who trace their ancestry more remotely or to those who are the spiritual or intellectual successors of a great man{all the progeny of David
}{the intellectual progeny of Plato
}Issue, chiefly a legal term, is more abstract than the preceding terms and is used merely to call attention to the fact that a union has or has not reproduced its kind{die without issue
}{in the event of issue, the estate will pass to the children who are born of this union
}Descendant, on the other hand, applies to anyone who has or, in the plural, to all who have a right to claim relationship with a person as an ancestor in direct line; the degree of nearness does not matter, but the relationship of each as child, grandchild, great-grand- child, and so on must exist{they are descendants of the first settlers of the town
}{the claims of certain people to be descendants of George Washington are absurd, since he died without issue
}Posterity differs from descendants only in connoting all the descendants of a common an-cestor{the unnumbered posterity of William Bradford
}The term is also often used of the generations that come after a person, a race, or a people{his fame will live to all posterity
}{we are leaving many problems for posterity to solve
}
New Dictionary of Synonyms. 2014.