Meanings
- uncountableThe fundamental set of qualities, and the range of behaviour, shared by (or believed by many to be shared by) all humans; the probabilities about thoughts, feelings, and behaviors that are typical among most humans.
Some philosophers argue that there is fundamentally no such thing as human nature, but many people reject this thought for practical purposes because by human nature they merely mean predictable likelihoods about how humans can often be expected to think, feel, and behave.
2 more examples
The most rapid and most seductive transition in all human nature is that which attends the palliation of a ravenous appetite. There is something humiliating about it.[…]Can those harmless but refined fellow-diners be the selfish cads whose gluttony and personal appearance so raised your contemptuous wrath on your arrival?
1921, Ben Travers, chapter 5, in A Cuckoo in the Nest, Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, Page & Company, published 1925, →OCLCSo for all the flaws in human nature, it contains the seeds of its own improvement, as long as it comes up with norms and institutions that channel parochial interests into universal benefits. Among those norms are free speech, nonviolence, cooperation, cosmopolitanism, human rights, and an acknowledgment of human fallibility, and among the institutions are science, education, media, democratic government, international organizations, and markets. Not coincidentally, these were the major brainchildren of the Enlightenment.
2018, Steven Pinker, “Chapter 2: Entro, Evo, Info”, in Enlightenment Now: The Case for Reason, Science, Humanism, and Progress, Penguin, →ISBN
Translations
Chinese Mandarin 人性
- 人性 (rénxìng)set of qualities shared by all humans
Dutch mensenaard
- mensenaardset of qualities shared by all humans
Finnish ihmisluonto, ihmisluonne
- ihmisluontoset of qualities shared by all humans
- ihmisluonneset of qualities shared by all humans
French nature humaine
- nature humaineset of qualities shared by all humans
German Menschennatur
- Menschennaturset of qualities shared by all humans
Hebrew טבע האדם
- טבע האדםset of qualities shared by all humans
Italian natura umana
- natura umanaset of qualities shared by all humans
Latvian cilvēka daba
- cilvēka dabaset of qualities shared by all humans
Portuguese natureza humana
- natureza humanaset of qualities shared by all humans
Russian приро́да челове́ка
- приро́да челове́ка (priróda čelovéka)set of qualities shared by all humans
Spanish naturaleza humana
- naturaleza humanaset of qualities shared by all humans
Swedish människonatur
- människonaturset of qualities shared by all humans
Cite this entry
human nature. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 4, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/human%20nature
“human nature.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/human%20nature. Accessed November 4, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “human nature,” accessed November 4, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/human%20nature.
Source: human nature on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.