gen

The word 'gen' originated as Royal Air Force slang around the First World War, a clipped form of 'information'. Its specific origin is uncertain but is often suggested to be a humorous alteration of 'general information'. It gained wider usage during the Second World War and subsequently entered broader British informal speech. The later, related informal use meaning 'generation' (as in Gen X) is a separate, mid-20th century clipping from that word, influenced by the pattern of abbreviations like 'info'. Both senses exemplify the common linguistic process of clipping for brevity and casual communication.

The word 'gen' is a clipped form of the noun 'information'. It is a 20th-century British military slang term, later adopted into general informal English. As a clipping, it does not contain segmentable morphemes in the traditional sense.