GENUS • DICTIONARY ONE.COM • Definition of Genus

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noun

Genus n. (pl. genera)

(Logic) 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.

(Biol.) 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. Note: Thus in the animal kingdom the lion, leopard, tiger, cat, and panther are species of the Cat kind or genus, while in the vegetable kingdom all the species of oak form a single genus. Some genera are represented by a multitude of species, as Solanum (Nightshade) and Carex (Sedge), others by few, and some by only one known species.

Subaltern genus (Logic), a genus which may be a species of a higher genus, as the genus denoted by quadruped, which is also a species of mammal.

Summum genus (Logic), the highest genus; a genus which can not be classed as a species, as being.

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Etymology of 'Genus'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Genus" Quotes from Famous Books

... poison they use is made of the seeds of the 'datura' plant (Datura alba), and other species of the same genus. It is ...

— Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official • William Sleeman

... has since been compared by Mr Blyth, curator of the Asiatic Society, Calcutta, and determined to be a new genus, and was named by ...

— What Led To The Discovery of the Source Of The Nile • John Hanning Speke

... into two kinds. Everybody will consider this statement a conundrum, and answer,—"Bad and good." Wrong, my little dears. All your lexicographers agree that "kind" means a "race," which is absurd, because a horse-race, for instance, is anything but kind. But they explain by saying that it means a genus. Good plays are not a genus. They are freaks of nature, like the woolly horse and the sacred cow; only, when they are produced, so many people will not pay money to see them as to see the w.h. ...

— Punchinello, Vol. II., Issue 31, October 29, 1870 • Various

... the Pinaster section of the genus. In the south of Europe it is a lofty tree, with a spreading head forming a kind of parasol, and a trunk 50 feet or 60 feet high, clear of branches. The bark of the trunk is reddish and sometimes cracked, but the ...

— Scientific American Supplement, No. 488, May 9, 1885 • Various

... reigned with Him, but not in the place where he was, nor in his heart. In all men that ever I have met there was a certain presence of God. As the apostle told the men of Athens, Ipsius enim et genus suum; ["For we are also His offspring" (Acts xvii. 28.)] and, again, Non longe est ab unoquoque nostrum; ["He is not far from every one of us" (Acts xvii. 27.)] and again, In ipso vivimus, et movemur, et sumus. ["In Him we live, and we move, and we are" (Acts ...

— The History of Richard Raynal, Solitary • Robert Hugh Benson

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