homō

hom--ō lat. 'Erdling'; 'Mensch'

Latin homō (nominative). The plural reflects Latin hominēs.

Vom früheren hemō, vom uital. *hemō, vom protoindogermanischen *ǵʰm̥mṓ „Erdling“, von *dʰéǵʰōm „Erde“, woher lat. humus. Verwandte sind unter anderem das altlitauische žmuõ („Mann“), das gotische 𐌲𐌿𐌼𐌰 (guma) und das aengl. guma („Mann“). Siehe auch nēmō „niemand“, von *ne hemō.

Das Phänomen einer abgeleiteten Beziehung zwischen den Wörtern für Erde und Mensch ist auch in semitischen Sprachen zu beobachten: Hebräisch אָדָם⁩ adám, „Mensch“, אֲדָמָה⁩ (adamá, „Erde“).

Noun

homō m (genitive hominis); third declension

1. a human being, man, human, person

   Homō hominī lupus (proverb).

1. Man is a wolf to man.

1. Hominēs, dum docent, discunt.

1. While teaching, people also learn themselves.

1. a male human being, man [ quotations ▼]
2. (address) man, fellow, mate, pal, bud, partner, dude (a form of address to male peers, especially by another male) [ quotations ▼]
3. (address) used in the vocative expression "mi homo" as a form of address to a man by a woman [ quotations ▼]
4. (Medieval Latin) husband

Usage notes

• Homō has the basic sense of "human being" and is often used generically to mean “Man” or “men” in the broad sense of "humanity", encompassing both male and female human beings. It is not typically used to specify or emphasize male as opposed to female sex: the usual terms to express “man” in the sense “male” are vir (“adult male human being”) or mās (“male”). There are rare examples in early Latin of homō being used in contrast to an explicitly female term such as mulier (“woman”), such as Plautus Cistellaria 723, but this only becomes frequent in late Latin.
• When referring to specific human beings, homō is more often applied to male rather than female persons in the corpus of ancient Latin texts. For Romans, the use of homō versus vir when referring to a male human being was influenced by the differing social connotations of the two words: vir tends to be reserved as a positive designation for men of the Roman upper class, whereas the more generic term homō is frequently used to refer to men of lower social orders or foreigners, and also to refer to upper class men in contexts where the positive connotations of vir would be out of place. For example, homō rather than vir tends to be used by Cicero in connection with pejorative adjectives. There seems to have been a similar distinction in social connotation between mulier (“woman”), the general word for 'woman' that could be used in neutral or negative contexts, and fēmina (“female, woman”), which had positive, aristocratic overtones when used as a designation for a woman.
• Homō is claimed to be of common (epicene) gender by several grammarians, albeit with limited external supporting evidence - see quotations. When used with a modifier and referring to a woman, nevertheless agrees in the masculine gender (like German Mensch, Russian челове́к (čelovék)) (Charisius, GL I, p.102.20–103.1 = pp.130.19–31.2 B.).

Pronunciation

• (Classical) IPA^(key): /ˈho.moː/, [ˈhɔmoː] or IPA^(key): /ˈho.mo/, [ˈhɔmɔ]
• (modern Italianate Ecclesiastical) IPA^(key): /ˈo.mo/, [ˈɔːmo]
• Note: iambic shortening of the final vowel before a following (primarily or secondarily) stressed syllable is very common, but in hexameter poetry this variation may simply have been lexicalised as arbitrary license.

Declension

Third-declension noun.

Case	Singular	Plural
Nominative	homō	hominēs
Genitive	hominis	hominum
Dative	hominī	hominibus
Accusative	hominem	hominēs
Ablative	homine	hominibus
Vocative	homō	hominēs