from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
- n. A geometric element that generates a geometric figure, especially a straight line that generates a surface by moving in a specified fashion. Also called generator.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
- n. A curve that, when rotated about an axis, produces a solid figure
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English
- n. That which generates; the point, or the mathematical magnitude, which, by its motion, generates another magnitude, as a line, surface, or solid; -- called also describent.
from The Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- n. In mathematics, that which generates; specifically, the point, line, or figure which by its motion is conceived to generate a line, surface, or solid.
- n. In physics, a dynamo-electric machine employed to generate an electric current. Compare receptrix.
In each of these cases, it would be unreasonable to expect the protagonist to be the generator or generatrix, in this case of the action of the scene.
Terra ipsa Ægyptus expers imbrium mire tamen fertilis, et hominum aliorumque perfoecunda generatrix.
Moreover, by the position of our intestines, through which the food is conveyed, and by the fact that they possess such a figure, our internal configuration  in the form of a serpent reveals our hidden generatrix.
Upon this latter a 2.6 m. wooden pulley directly drove, through a belt, the 0.2 m. pulley of the generatrix.
As the action of the light continued, the first cloud gradually resolved itself into a series of parallel disks of exquisite delicacy, which rotated round an axis perpendicular to their surfaces, and finally blended to a screw surface with an inclined generatrix.
Ægyptus expers imbrium mire tamen fertilis, et hominum aliorumque perfoecunda generatrix.