Genus

How to spell genus

5 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce genus

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does genus mean?

1. nounA rank in biological classification above species and below family, grouping closely related organisms.
2. nounA general class or kind of thing that contains subordinate types.

Genus in a sentence

• The domestic dog belongs to the genus Canis.

• In logic a broad genus is divided into narrower species by their defining differences.

• Botanists assigned the new plant to a previously unknown genus.

• The report treated fraud as one genus with many distinct forms beneath it.

Where does genus come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word comes straight from the Latin genus, which meant 'birth', 'origin', 'race', or 'kind', and it was built on the same ancient root gen-, meaning 'to be born' or 'to produce', that gives us 'generate', 'gender', and 'genuine'. The Latin term was itself a close cousin of the Greek genos, carrying the same notion of stock or descent. English adopted genus unchanged in the 1500s, first in the broad sense of a class or group sharing common features, and then, from the eighteenth century onward, as a precise rank in biological classification sitting just above species. Its Latin origin is also why the plural is the irregular 'genera' rather than 'genuses', a survival of the original Latin form. A useful spelling note is that genus has only one vowel before the n, unlike its near-twin 'genius', so keeping the two apart on paper is the main trap.

How the word is built

• gen- (from Latin genus: birth, kind, race)
• -us (Latin noun suffix)