Word.ws English Dictionary

lusus naturæ

lusus naturæ is the archaic spelling 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

Forms of lusus naturæ

plurallusus naturæ
plurallusûs naturæ

Questions about lusus naturæ

What is lusus naturæ the archaic spelling of?
Lusus naturæ is the archaic spelling of lusus naturae.

Words near lusus naturæ in the dictionary

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

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: lusus naturæ (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.

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Cite this entry: “lusus naturæ.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/lusus_natur%C3%A6. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.