Word of the Day:
eugenics
What It 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.
Eugenics in Context
“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...”
Did You Know?
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.
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: eugenics (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws chose the word and reformatted its meaning, examples and origin.
Cite this entry: “eugenics.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/eugenics. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.