generation
age group / production / version
[C/U] Both
pl: generations
This term carries a strong sense of chronological layering. When applied to people, it evokes a feeling of shared cultural identity and collective experience, often highlighting the friction or gap in understanding between different age groups.
In technical or industrial contexts, it describes a leap in evolution. It suggests a clean break from the previous version, where the new iteration is expected to be more efficient, powerful, or sophisticated than its predecessor.
Countable when referring to a specific group of people born in the same era (the baby boomer generation). Uncountable when referring to the general process of producing something (the generation of heat).