¹⁶ "For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. (John 3:16 ESV)

1) single of its kind, only

• used of only sons or daughters (viewed in relation to their parents)
• used of Christ, denotes the only begotten son of God

begotton (adj.) (of offspring) generated by procreation; "naturally begotten child"

See also:
•   begotton wordnet.princeton.edu,
•   begotton dictionary.reference.com

God "..didn't give Him into the hands of a trustworthy caregiver. He didn't give Him up for adoption by loving parents. He didn't even give Him up for a season only to have Him returned to Him unharmed. When God gave His only begotten Son, He gave Him up to be killed. That's how much God loved the world." -Jeff Miller , Th.M.

Context

⁵Jesus answered, "I tell you the truth, no one can enter the kingdom of God unless he is born of water and the Spirit. ⁶ Flesh gives birth to flesh, but the Spirit gives birth to spirit."

The word "begotten," used in the King James version of John 3:16, is taken from the original Greek word μονογενῆ [transliterated: Monogenes] which means "single of its kind, only used of only sons or daughters (viewed in relation to their parents)," and its [transliterated] word origin is

[Monos: alone (without a companion), forsaken, destitute of help, alone, only, merely

+

Ginomai:

to become, i.e. to come into existence, begin to be, receive being to become, i.e. to come to pass, happen of events to arise, appear in history, come upon the stage of men appearing in public to be made, finished of miracles, to be performed, wrought to become, be made]

Οὕτως³⁷⁷⁹ γὰρ¹⁰⁶³ ἠγάπησεν²⁵ ὁ³⁵⁸⁸ Θεὸς²³¹⁶ τὸν³⁵⁸⁸ κόσμον²⁸⁸⁹, ὥστε⁵⁶²⁰ τὸν³⁵⁸⁸ Υἱὸν⁵²⁰⁷ τὸν³⁵⁸⁸ μονογενῆ³⁴³⁹ ἔδωκεν¹³²⁵, ἵνα²⁴⁴³ πᾶς³⁹⁵⁶ ὁ³⁵⁸⁸ πιστεύων⁴¹⁰⁰ εἰς¹⁵¹⁹ Αὐτὸν⁸⁴⁶ μὴ³³⁶¹ ἀπόληται⁶²² ἀλλ᾽²³⁵ ἔχῃ²¹⁹² ζωὴν²²²² αἰώνιον¹⁶⁶

Which could be translated literally to mean:

For in this way God loved the world: that He gave the unique son, so that all the ones trusting in Him would not perish, but have eternal life.

The more familiar King James Version renders it as:

For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life.

Other information

The text of the verse is also incorporated into the Divine Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom, eloquent fourth century archbishop of Constantinople, as part of a prayer said by the celebrant. This Divine Liturgy is still commonly used in the Eastern Orthodox Church and in the Byzantine rite of the Roman Catholic Church.

The various translations differ on whether this is a direct quote of Jesus or a comment of the narrator of the Gospel.

The computer scientist Donald Knuth produced an illustrated re-translation of Chapter 3, verse 16 of every book in the Bible, 3:16 Bible Texts Illuminated (ISBN 0–89579–252–4). 3:16 was chosen because of this key passage in John. Knuth's Things a Computer Scientist Rarely Talks About reproduces a lecture series that he gave at MIT, centred on his process of production of his book on 3:16.

References

• "begotten." Dictionary.com Unabridged (v 1.1). Random House, Inc. 27 Aug. 2008.
• wordnet.princeton.edu
• Most modern translations use "unique Son," "only Son," and the like, because the second root-word of μονογενής is now understood to be γένος (genos "kind, type") rather than γεννάω ("to beget, to father"); hence "only + kind" rather than "only + begotten." See discussion in Louw and Nida, A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament Based on Semantic Domains, p. 591; Moulton and Milligan, The Vocabulary of the Greek new Testament, pp. 416–17; Bauer, Danker, Arndt and Gingrich, A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature (2nd ed.), p. 527 (the Bauer Lexicon).
• TopVerses.com
• Max Lucado Launches John 3:16 Movement, Christian Post, Jan 8, 2008
• The word Αὐτὸν appears in the Textus Receptus and the Byzantine text-type, but not the Alexandrian text-type.