eugenics

/juːˈd͡ʒɛnɪks/

eugenics noun: a social philosophy or practice which advocates the improvement of human hereditary qualities through selective breeding, either by encouraging people with superior genetic qualities to reproduce (positive eugenics), or discouraging people with inferior genetic qualities from reproducing (negative eugenics), or by technological means.

Image: CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Noun

eugenics (uncountable)

A social philosophy or practice which advocates the improvement of human hereditary qualities through selective breeding, either by encouraging people with superior genetic qualities to reproduce (positive eugenics), or discouraging people with inferior genetic qualities from reproducing (negative eugenics), or by technological means.
- In keeping with the goals of the new eugenics movement, McCulloch was claiming to offer scientific evidence of the incorrigibility of poor rural whites.2006, Matt Wray, Not Quite White, page 77
- The eugenics mania that swept the country in the late 19th and early 20th centuries led to forced sterilizations and the passage of laws in 27 states designed to limit the numbers of those considered genetically unfit: immigrants, Jews, African-Americans, the mentally ill and those deemed “morally...2018 October 16, John Blake, “When Americans tried to breed a better race: How a genetic fitness ‘crusade’ marches on”, in CNN

eugenics meaning in Tamil, Malayalam, Tagalog and Arabic

eugenics in Tamil

இன ஆக்க மேம்பாட்டுயல், நல்லீற்றியல், இனமேம்பாட்டுயல், நல்லினவிருத்தியியல், நற்செனிப்பியம்

eugenics in Malayalam

സുസന്താനോത്പാദനവിദ്യ

eugenics in Tagalog

social philosophy: butinsuplingan

eugenics in Arabic

social philosophy: تَحْسِين نَسْل taḥsīn nasl

More languagesFewer languages

eugenics in Malay: eugenika, eugenik
eugenics in Indonesian: eugenika, eugenetika
eugenics in Thai: สุพันธุศาสตร์
eugenics in Vietnamese: thuyết ưu sinh

Examples of eugenics in a sentence

They don't speak of eugenics but rather of maintaining "human biodiversity".
Eugenics was the crucial vehicle for nationalizing and deregionalizing the stigmatypes of southern poor white trash.
They wow the crowd with heavy machinery and endangered-species eugenics.

All 10 example sentences with eugenics

Origin of eugenics

Coined by Francis Galton in 1883. From ἐΰς (eǘs, “good”) + γίγνομαι (gígnomai, “breeding”), “well-bred”, “good in stock”. Parallel to Eugene. By surface analysis, eugenic + -s.

Words formed from eugenics

Questions about eugenics

What does eugenics mean?: Eugenics means a social philosophy or practice which advocates the improvement of human hereditary qualities through selective breeding, either by encouraging people with superior genetic qualities to reproduce (positive eugenics), or discouraging people with inferior genetic qualities from reproducing (negative eugenics), or by technological means.
What is eugenics in Tamil?: Eugenics in Tamil is இன ஆக்க மேம்பாட்டுயல், நல்லீற்றியல், இனமேம்பாட்டுயல். See Eugenics meaning in Tamil.
What part of speech is eugenics?: Eugenics is a noun.
How do you pronounce eugenics?: Eugenics is pronounced /juːˈd͡ʒɛnɪks/.

Words near eugenics in the dictionary

Adapted from Wiktionary: eugenics (page history and authors); eugenics (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); eugenics (Malayalam Wiktionary) (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated: 2026-09-02

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-eugenics.wav.

Cite this entry: “eugenics.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/eugenics. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.