genus

Etymology

Borrowed from Latin genus (“birth, origin, a race, sort, kind”) from the root gen- in Latin gignō (“to beget, produce”). Doublet of gender, genre, and kin.

noun

1. (biology, taxonomy) A category in the classification of organisms, ranking below family (Lat. familia) and above species.
   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.
   1. A taxon at this rank.
2. A group with common attributes.
   Recollection is one of a whole genus of effects which are more or less peculiar to the phenomena that we naturally call "mental." 1945, Bertrand Russell, A History of Western Philosophy, page 655
3. (topology, graph theory, algebraic geometry) A natural number representing any of several related measures of the complexity of a given manifold or graph.
4. (semantics) Within a definition, a broader category of the defined concept.
5. (music) A type of tuning or intonation, used within an Ancient Greek tetrachord.