Definify.com
Webster 1913 Edition
Humanity
1.
The quality of being human; the peculiar nature of man, by which he is distinguished from other beings.
2.
Mankind collectively; the human race.
But hearing oftentimes
The still, and music
The still, and music
humanity
. Wordsworth.
It is a debt we owe to
humanity
. S. S. Smith.
3.
The quality of being humane; the kind feelings, dispositions, and sympathies of man; especially, a disposition to relieve persons or animals in distress, and to treat all creatures with kindness and tenderness.
“The common offices of humanity and friendship.” Locke.
4.
Mental cultivation; liberal education; instruction in classical and polite literature.
Polished with
humanity
and the study of witty science. Holland.
5.
pl.
(With definite article) The branches of polite or elegant learning; as language, rhetoric, poetry, and the ancient classics; belles-letters.
☞ The cultivation of the languages, literature, history, and archæology of Greece and Rome, were very commonly called literæ humaniores, or, in English, the humanities, . . . by way of opposition to the literæ divinæ, or divinity.
G. P. Marsh.
Webster 1828 Edition
Humanity
HUMAN'ITY
,Noun.
1.
The peculiar nature of man, by which he is distinguished from other beings. Thus Christ, by his incarnation, was investedwith humanity.
2.
Mankind collectively; the human race. If he is able to untie those knots,he is able to teach all humanity.
It is a debt we owe to humanity.
3.
The kind feelings, dispositions and sympathies of man,by which he is distinguished from the lower orders of animals; kindness; benevolence; especially, a disposition to relieve persons in distress, and to treat with tenderness those who are helpless and defenseless; opposed to cruelty.4.
A disposition to treat the lower orders of animals with tenderness, or at least to give them no unnecessary pain.5.
The exercise of kindness; acts of tenderness.6.
Philology; grammatical studies.Humanities, in the plural, signifies grammar, rhetoric and poetry; for teaching which there are professors in the universities of Scotland.
Definition 2024
humanity
humanity
English
Noun
humanity (countable and uncountable, plural humanities)
- Mankind; human beings as a group.
- 1913, Joseph C. Lincoln, chapter 4, in Mr. Pratt's Patients:
- Then he commenced to talk, really talk. and inside of two flaps of a herring's fin he had me mesmerized, like Eben Holt's boy at the town hall show. He talked about the ills of humanity, and the glories of health and Nature and service and land knows what all.
- 2013 June 7, David Simpson, “Fantasy of navigation”, in The Guardian Weekly, volume 188, number 26, page 36:
- It is tempting to speculate about the incentives or compulsions that might explain why anyone would take to the skies in [the] basket [of a balloon]: […]; perhaps to moralise on the oneness or fragility of the planet, or to see humanity for the small and circumscribed thing that it is; […].
-
- The human condition or nature.
- The quality of being benevolent; humane traits of character; humane qualities or aspects.
- 1851, Herman Melville, Moby Dick, chapter 16
- Think of that; by that sweet girl that old man had a child: hold ye then there can be any utter, hopeless harm in Ahab? No, no, my lad; stricken, blasted, if he be, Ahab has his humanities!”
- 1851, Herman Melville, Moby Dick, chapter 16
Synonyms
- (benevolence): humaneness
- See also Wikisaurus:humankind
Related terms
Derived terms
Translations
human beings as a group
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human condition
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quality of being benevolent
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