genus
/ˈd͡ʒiːnəs/
Word Rarity
Rare
Frequency: 3.73 in modern English
6
Scrabble Score
5
Letters
2
Syllables
5
Unique Chars
Meaning
noun
A category in the classification of organisms, ranking below family (Lat. familia) and above species.
noun
A category in the classification of organisms, ranking below family (Lat. familia) and above species.
noun
A group with common attributes.
noun
A natural number representing any of several related measures of the complexity of a given manifold or graph.
noun
Within a definition, a broader category of the defined concept.
noun
A type of tuning or intonation, used within an Ancient Greek tetrachord.
Example Sentences
- "All magnolias belong to the genus Magnolia."
- "Other species of the genus Bos are often called cattle or wild cattle."
- "There are only two genera and species of seadragons."
- "Müller […] criticized the division of the "Jubuleae" into two families and he cited Jubula as an annectant genus."
- "Other maloid genera with hard nutlets are Cotoneaster, Hesperomeles, Osteomeles, and Pyracantba, but each of these is quite different from Mespilus and Crataegus."
- "In most cases, at subsequent mentions of the binomial name you can abbreviate the genus with no danger of confusing the reader."
Etymology
Etymology tree Proto-Indo-European *ǵenh₁- Proto-Indo-European *-os Proto-Indo-European *ǵénh₁os Proto-Italic *genos Latin genusbor. English genus 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.
Origin
- Source language: Latin
Word Breakdown
- Root: *ǵenh₁-, genus, gignō
Regional Pronunciation
- American English: /ˈd͡ʒiːnəs/
- British English: /ˈdʒiːnəs/
Inflected Forms
Derived Forms
Phrases
cloud genus
Euler-Fokker genus
Euler genus
form genus
genus alternas
genus name
summum genus
type genus