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ENGLISH · A WORD WITH POSSIBILITIES

humane.

Having or showing concern for the pain or suffering of another; compassionate.

6 characters2 syllables approx.English language

Meaning & usage

adj/hjuːˈmeɪn/Received-Pronunciation/hjuˈmeɪn/Canada, General-American/hjʉːˈmæɪn/Australia, New-Zealand
  1. Having or showing concern for the pain or suffering of another; compassionate.

    It is no longer considered humane to perform vivisection on research animals.
    As methods of execution go, beheading is more humane than drawing and quartering.
  2. Pertaining to branches of learning concerned with human affairs or the humanities, especially classical literature or rhetoric.

  3. Obsolete spelling of human.

    alt-of · obsolete
Where this word comes from

From Middle English humain, humayne, from Old French humain, umain, from Latin hūmānus, from Latin homō (“man”). Cognate with Old English guma (“man”), whence the groom in English bridegroom.

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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.

Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.