genus
pronunciation
How to pronounce genus in British English:
UK [ˈdʒiːnəs]
How to pronounce genus in American English:
US [ˈdʒiːnəs]
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- Noun:
- a general kind of something
- (biology) taxonomic group containing one or more species
Word Origin
- genus
- genus: see general
- genus (n.)
- (plural genera), 1550s as a term of logic, "kind or class of things" (biological sense dates from c. 1600), from Latin genus (genitive generis) "race, stock, kind; family, birth, descent, origin," from PIE root *gene- "to produce, give birth, beget," with derivatives referring to family and tribal groups. Cognates in this highly productive word group include Sanskrit janati "begets, bears," janah "race," janman- "birth, origin," jatah "born;" Avestan zizanenti "they bear;" Greek gignesthai "to become, happen," genos "race, kind," gonos "birth, offspring, stock;" Latin gignere "to beget," gnasci "to be born," genius "procreative divinity, inborn tutelary spirit, innate quality," ingenium "inborn character," possibly germen "shoot, bud, embryo, germ;" Lithuanian gentis "kinsmen;" Gothic kuni "race;" Old English cennan "beget, create," gecynd "kind, nature, race;" Old High German kind "child;" Old Irish ro-genar "I was born;" Welsh geni "to be born;" Armenian chanim "I bear, I am born").
Synonym
Example
- 1. Are the so-called hobbits really members of our genus homo ?
- 2. Artiodactyla camelidae non-humped camel ( alpaca ) 1 species of the genus .
- 3. As for the claws , there 's another genus of spiders with similar appendages , the spelungula of new zealand .
- 4. Stegoceras was a member of the leaf-eating genus pachycephalosauria that roamed the earth around 70 million years ago .
- 5. It recently rejected an application to protect the name d. melanogaster , which had been made in advance of a proposed revision of the genus .