Mankind
nounThe human race considered collectively; all human beings.
How to spell mankind
7 letters · 2 syllables
How to pronounce mankind
Say the part in capitals loudest.
What does mankind mean?
- nounThe human race considered collectively; all human beings.
Mankind in a sentence
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The discovery of antibiotics benefited all of mankind.
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Space exploration has long captured the imagination of mankind.
Where does mankind come from?
Language of origin: Germanic
This word comes straight from native English roots, not from Latin or French. It descends from the Old English mancynn, a compound of mann, meaning 'a person' or 'human being', and cynn, meaning 'race, family, or kin'. The second element is the same word that survives today as both 'kin' and 'kind', and it originally carried the sense of a natural group sharing a common stock. By the medieval period the two parts had fused into a single noun referring to the whole human race. The modern spelling keeps 'kind' intact rather than the older 'kin', which is why the word ends in a familiar everyday element and rarely trips writers up.
How the word is built
- man (human being)
- kind (race, kin, from Old English cynn)
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