Meanings
- humorousCollectively, straight people.
Man and woman, I said? In this day and age, forget gender! The problem is even more poignant if we consider any combination of Homo and Hetero sapiens getting married. Which name do they take?
2005, Jim Wegryn, Funny Thing about Names: An Entertaining Look at Naming in America, iUniverse, →ISBN, page 62
Origin
- translingualHomo sapiens
- EnglishHetero sapiens
From hetero (short for heterosexual) + translingual Homo sapiens, as if Homo (“the name of the taxonomic genus within the family Hominidae people are placed in”) were short for homosexual, while in truth it derives from Latin homō (“human being, man”).
More words from translingual
Full word history & related roots →Cite this entry
Hetero sapiens. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 4, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/Hetero%20sapiens
“Hetero sapiens.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/Hetero%20sapiens. Accessed November 4, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “Hetero sapiens,” accessed November 4, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/Hetero%20sapiens.
Source: Hetero sapiens on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.