humanities
- 1The academic disciplines concerned with human culture, namely language, literature, the arts, history, and philosophy, and sometimes also religion.
Her interest in the humanities led her to study both poetry and ancient history.
Budget cuts forced the college to merge several departments within the humanities.
Similararts
Oppositesciences
Note
The everyday academic sense keeps its plural form even when it modifies another noun: grants for humanities projects, humanities documentaries, a humanities department. Mainly in India, the same field is usually called arts, and the now-obsolete belles-lettres once served as another name for it. Religion sits at the edge: some count it among the humanities, others leave it out.
- 2Plural of humanity.
Note
Most of humanity's meanings are mass nouns and do not normally take a plural: humankind, human nature, kindness of character. The meaning that counts is the academic one. A single subject is a humanity, and several are humanities, which is where this plural shades into the modern field of study. Used of kind deeds, the plural treats each act as a separate instance of benevolence.
- 3The study of Ancient Greek and Latin and their literature; classical studies.
Note
This meaning has fallen out of use, and it never takes a singular form. A modern reader who meets the humanities will take it as the wider arts and letters, so in current writing say classical studies when only the ancient languages are meant. In older texts, read the word narrowly: history, philosophy and the arts came under it only with the later meaning.
humanities is a form of humanity
humanity, noun: The human race as a whole; all people considered together as a single group. Full entry
- Forms
- humanityhumanities plural
- Spelling
- humanity → humanities: change y to i, add -es
- Sound
- The ending sounds like /z/.
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