genus
UK /ˈdʒiːnəs/ · US /ˈd͡ʒiːnəs/ noun
Forms genera genuses genusses genii
- noun (biology, taxonomy) A category in the classification of organisms, ranking below family (Lat. familia) and above species. “All magnolias belong to the genus Magnolia.”
- noun (by ellipsis) A taxon at this rank. “In most cases, at subsequent mentions of the binomial name you can abbreviate the genus with no danger of confusing the reader.”
- noun A group with common attributes.
- noun (topology, graph theory, algebraic geometry) A natural number representing any of several related measures of the complexity of a given manifold or graph.
- noun (semantics) Within a definition, a broader category of the defined concept.
- noun (music) A type of tuning or intonation, used within an Ancient Greek tetrachord.
Synonyms
Etymology
Borrowed from Latin genus (“birth, origin, a race, sort, kind”) from the root gen- in Latin gignō (“to beget, produce”). Doublet of gender and genre, further related to kin.
Webster’s 1913
- noun A class of objects divided into several subordinate species; a class more extensive than a species; a precisely defined and exactly divided class; one of the five predicable conceptions, or sorts of terms.
- noun An assemblage of species, having so many fundamental points of structure in common, that in the judgment of competent scientists, they may receive a common substantive name. A genus is not necessarily the lowest definable group of species, for it may often be divided into several subgenera. In proportion as its definition is exact, it is natural genus; if its definition can not be made clear, it is more or less an artificial genus.
Etymology [L., birth, race, kind, sort; akin to Gr. Gender, and cf. Benign.]
Sources: Wiktionary · Webster’s 1913 — from the Wiktionary entry “genus”, CC BY-SA 4.0. Details