Hominis

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A biological term referring to the species of humans as distinguished from other animals
2. Representing the genus that includes modern humans and their extinct ancestors
3. Pertaining to or characteristic of human beings in a broader anthropological context

Etymology: Homo is the Latin word for "human being" or "man" in the general sense, and "hominis" is its genitive form, meaning "of a human." Latin "homo" is generally traced to an Indo-European root meaning "earth" or "ground," so a human was, in the old imagery, a creature of the soil. In Latin, "homo" was a neutral word for people in general, not specifically a male, although the Latin word "vir" was used when a man was meant as opposed to a woman. Scientific Latin took the word over when Carl Linnaeus named the genus in his "Systema Naturae" of 1735, and "Homo" became the name of the human genus. The genitive "hominis" is the form that appears in many scientific and medical terms built on the genus name, such as "Homo sapiens," which is Latin for "wise human." Because the naming system uses Latin grammar, the genus name keeps its Latin forms, with "hominis" surfacing in scientific phrases like "Hominis" as a possessive in older texts.

Synonyms: of man, human, human being