Word.ws English Dictionary

lusus

lusus is the ellipsis of lusus naturae.

Meaning of lusus naturae

Noun

lusus naturae (plural lusus naturae or (rare) lusûs naturae)

  1. (historical, originally) A sportive quality in Nature to which abnormal forms were formerly ascribed; a supposed capricious act of Nature regarded as the cause and origin of anomalies in a given organism.
    • […]I have obſerv'd ſome meſhes to have 5, 6, 7, 8, or 9. ſides, and ſome to have onely one, ſo exceeding various is the Luſus Naturæ in this body.1665, R[obert] Hooke, “Obſerv. XXII. Of common Sponges, and ſeveral other Spongiefibrous bodies.”, in Micrographia: Or Some Physiological Descriptions of Minute Bodies Made by Magnifying Glasses....
    Synonyms:
    God's joke
  2. (countable) An organism exhibiting marked such deviation from the norm, seeming to be the result of sportive design; a freak of nature.
    • All men, the monster and the lusus naturæ excepted, have a certain form, a certain complement of limbs, a certain internal structure, and organs of sense—may we not add further, certain powers of intellect?1831, William Godwin, Thoughts on Man […] , London: Effingham Wilson, pages 24–25

Proper noun capitalized: Lusus

Lusus

  1. (Roman) The supposed son or companion of Bacchus, god of wine and divine madness, to whom Portuguese national mythology attributed the foundation of ancient Lusitania and the fatherhood of the Lusitanians.

Forms of lusus

plurallususes

Origin of lusus

Learned borrowing from Latin Lūsus.

Phrases with lusus

Questions about lusus

What does lusus mean?
Lusus means the supposed son or companion of Bacchus, god of wine and divine madness, to whom Portuguese national mythology attributed the foundation of ancient Lusitania and the fatherhood of the Lusitanians.
What is lusus the ellipsis of?
Lusus is the ellipsis of lusus naturae.
What part of speech is lusus?
Lusus is a proper noun.

Words near lusus in the dictionary

  1. lustuous
  2. lustwort
  3. lustworthy
  4. lusty
  5. lusupultide
  6. lusus
  7. lusus naturae
  8. lusus naturæ
  9. lususes
  10. lusutrombopag
  11. LUT

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: lusus (page history and authors); Lusus (page history and authors); lusus naturae (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:

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