genus

plural genera · plural genuses · nonstandard plural genusses · nonstandard plural genii

1. biologyA category in the classification of organisms, ranking below family (Lat. familia) and above species.

   All magnolias belong to the genus Magnolia.

   4 more examples

   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.

   1992, Rudolf M[athias] Schuster, The Hepaticae and Anthocerotae of North America: East of the Hundredth Meridian, volume V, Chicago, Ill.: Field Museum of Natural History, →ISBN, page 6

   Other maloid genera with hard nutlets are Cotoneaster, Hesperomeles, Osteomeles, and Pyracantba, but each of these is quite different from Mespilus and Crataegus.

   2003, James B. Phipps, Robert J. O'Kennon, Ronald W. Lance, Hawthorns and Medlars, Portland, O.R.: Timber Press, →ISBN, page 57

   1. by ellipsisbiologyA taxon at this rank.

      In most cases, at subsequent mentions of the binomial name you can abbreviate the genus with no danger of confusing the reader.

      Synonyms: genus name

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. algebraic geometryA natural number representing any of several related measures of the complexity of a given manifold or graph.
4. human sciencesWithin a definition, a broader category of the defined concept.
5. entertainmentA type of tuning or intonation, used within an Ancient Greek tetrachord.