Humane

How to spell humane

6 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce humane

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does humane mean?

1. adjectiveShowing compassion, kindness, or mercy toward people or animals.

Humane in a sentence

• The shelter is committed to the humane treatment of every animal it takes in.

• Campaigners argued that the new policy offered a more humane way to house the homeless.

Where does humane come from?

Language of origin: Latin

Humane and human are doublets: both descend from the Latin humanus, meaning 'of or belonging to mankind', which was tied to homo 'human being' and, more loosely, to humus 'the ground' or 'earth', reflecting an old idea of people as earthly creatures. In the Middle Ages English borrowed the word through Old French as a single form spelled various ways, and for a long time 'human' and 'humane' were simply two spellings of the one word covering both 'belonging to people' and 'kind, gentle'. By the seventeenth century writers began to split them deliberately: 'human' kept the plain sense of 'relating to people', while 'humane' was reserved for the warmer idea of mercy and compassion, the qualities thought to befit a civilised person. The final silent -e is the only visible clue to this separation, which is exactly why the two words are so easy to mix up. The same kindly sense survives in 'the humanities', the studies once believed to make a person more civil and gentle.

How the word is built

• human- (from Latin humanus: of mankind, kind)
• -e (spelling that marks the compassionate sense, distinct from 'human')