homogeneous
/ˌhoʊməˈdʒiːniəs/adjective
Of one kind; uniform throughout
From Greek ὁμός (same) + Greek γένος (kind).
Lineage
ὁμός
γένος
The story
Picture an ancient Greek sorting the world into family resemblance: this belongs with that because they share the same kind. The phrase was ὁμογενής, built from ὁμός, “same,” and γένος, “kind or family”—so homogeneous is, at heart, a very formal way of saying “all from the same clan.” The second root also survives in genus, genealogy, and generation, while its contrast appears in heterogeneous, where heteros means “different.” Medieval Latin carried homogeneus into scientific and scholarly writing, and English had the modern form by the 1640s. A geologist can therefore call a rock homogeneous, while an ancient Greek might have heard an echo of family resemblance: one kind, one stock, no linguistic outsiders at the party.
Modern usage
Playful internet wordplay, including jokes about “homo-geniuses” or an allegedly uniform population; these uses are nonstandard.
- Heard in
- internet slang · wordplay
- See
- Urban Dictionary
Words from the same roots
ὁμός · Ancient Greek, ‘same, alike’
Derivedhomo-, homonym, homogeneous, homologous
γένος · Ancient Greek, ‘kind, race, family, stock’
Derivedgenus, genetic, generation, genealogy, heterogeneous, -genous
Sources
- Etymonlinehomogeneous, porphyry, heterogeneous, mineral, pure
- Urban Dictionaryhomogeneous
- Wiktionaryhomogeneous