human being

plural human beings

1. A person; a large sapient, bipedal primate, with notably less hair than others of that order, of the species Homo sapiens.

   He began to reflect that in a few Minutes he might possibly deprive a human Being of Life, or might lose his own.

   1749, Henry Fielding, The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling, volume III, VII xiv

   1 more example

   The book argues that leftists don’t deserve the status of human beings — that they are, as the title says, unhumans — and that they are waging a shadow war against all that is good and decent, which will end in apocalyptic slaughter if they are not stopped.

   2024 August 5, Michelle Goldberg, “JD Vance Just Blurbed a Book Arguing That Progressives Are Subhuman”, in The New York Times, New York, N.Y.: The New York Times Company, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 24 Aug 2024

   Synonyms: featherless biped, human, human bean, man, naked ape, person, sapiens, woman

2. Any member of the genus Homo, including extinct species.

   The category “human being” is a biological one, and Homo erectus, Homo sapiens, and Homo floresiensis all belong in it.

   2006, M.S. Green, Engaging Philosophy, Hackett, →ISBN, page 143

   5 more examples

   The first real human beings in China lived about 600,000 years ago. Fossils of Gigantopithecus, a Latin name for Giant Ape, were dug up at Lan-t'ien in the early 1960s. Though they looked a lot like apes, the Lan-t'ien people were among the first of our species to make tools.

   1983, Valjean McLenighan, China, A History to 1949, Chicago: Children's Press, →ISBN, →LCCN, →OCLC, page 10

   As Australopithecus evolved into the first human being, Homo habilis, and then into the species, Homo sapiens, we have evolved as social beings

   2002, Hyun Höchsmann, On Peter Singer, Wadsworth/Thomson Learning, →ISBN, page 2

   Who was the first human being to pray? Perhaps he or she was a member of Homo habilis, the first truly human species, who roamed the gorges and plains of sub-Saharan Africa about two million years ago, or perhaps a member of Homo erectus (1.6 million—300,000 B.C.E.), Homo habilis’s immediate descendants, who spread across half the globe, from the eastern plains of Asia to the valleys of northern Europe.

   2006, P. & C. Zaleski, Prayer: A History, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, →ISBN, page 15

   A specific part of the left hemisphere, known as Broca's area, which is associated in modern humans with speech production, has already been observed in casts of the brain of homo habilis, the first human being to make tools

   2007, K. Kotsakis, “Tools and language”, in A.F. Christidis, editor, A History of Ancient Greek, Cambridge University Press, →ISBN, page 106

   At several sites in Zambia, archaeologists have found stone tools dating back more than 200,000 years. The people who created these tools were probably Homo erectus, an early type of human being.

   2009, B. Waters, Zambia in Pictures, Twenty-First Century Books, →ISBN, page 20