formation vs generation

formation

noun
  • The process during which something comes into being and gains its characteristics. 

  • An arrangement of players designed to facilitate certain plays. 

  • An arrangement of moving troops, ships, or aircraft, such as a wedge, line abreast, or echelon. Often "in formation". 

  • A structure made of two categories, two functors from the first to the second category, and a transformation from one of the functors to the other. 

  • The act of assembling a group or structure. 

  • Something possessing structure or form. 

  • A layer of rock of common origin. 

  • A grouping of military units or smaller formations under a command, such as a brigade, division, wing, etc. 

  • The process of influencing or guiding a person to a deeper understanding of a particular vocation. 

generation

noun
  • The act of creating something or bringing something into being; production, creation. 

  • Race, family; breed. 

  • A set stage in the development of computing or of a specific technology. 

  • The formation or production of any geometrical magnitude, as a line, a surface, a solid, by the motion, in accordance with a mathematical law, of a point or a magnitude, by the motion of a point, of a surface by a line, a sphere by a semicircle, etc. 

  • A version of a form of pop culture which differs from later or earlier versions. 

  • The act of creating a living creature or organism; procreation. 

  • The average amount of time needed for children to grow up and have children of their own, generally considered to be a period of around thirty years, used as a measure of time. 

  • A single step or stage in the succession of natural descent; a rank or degree in genealogy, the members of a family from the same parents, considered as a single unit. 

  • A group of people born in a specific range of years and whose members can relate culturally to one another. 

  • A copy of a recording made from an earlier copy and thus further degraded in quality. 

How often have the words formation and generation occurred in a corpus of books? (source: Google Ngram Viewer )