Definition of "begetter"

Our fond Begetters, who would never die,Love but themselves in their posteritie.

1681, John Dryden, Absalom and Achitophel‎, Dublin, page 17

It was a mirror now,And in it a long perspective I could traceOf my begetters, dwindling backward each past eachAll with the family look,Whose names had since been inked down in their placeOn the recorder’s book,Generation and generation of my mien, and build, and brow.

1917, Thomas Hardy, “The Pedigree”, in Moments of Vision and Miscellaneous Verses‎, London: Macmillan, page 63

To the onlie begetter of these insuing sonnets Mr. W. H. all happinesse and that eternitie promised by our ever-living poet wisheth the well-wishing adventurer in setting forth.

1609, William Shakespeare, “(please specify the sonnet number)”, in Shake-speares Sonnets. […]‎[Dedication], London: By G[eorge] Eld for T[homas] T[horpe] and are to be sold by William Aspley

He was neither a wit nor a croquet champion, a hypnotic force nor a begetter of amateur theatricals.

1911, Saki, “Tobermory”, in The Chronicles of Clovis‎, London: John Lane, published 1912, page 30

Rumours are the begetters of gossip. Even more are they the begetters of song.

1980, Doris Lessing, The Marriages Between Zones Three, Four and Five‎, London: Jonathan Cape, page 3

The [Metropolitan] line's begetter, Charles Pearson, had died of dropsy on 14 September 1862. He had naturally refused a payment from the Metropolitan in return for his advocacy of the line, but the company paid an annuity of £250 to his widow.

2012, Andrew Martin, Underground Overground: A passenger's history of the Tube, Profile Books, page 35

As the sponsor and begetter of extremism, it was only the army which could take on religious extremism along the north-western marches and the ‘secular’ brand of terrorism down south in Karachi.

2015 March 17, Ayaz Amir, “So what else should Christians do?”, in The News International