hominin

American  

[hom-uh-nin] / ˈhɒm ə nɪn /

noun

Anthropology, Zoology.

1. any member of the group consisting of all modern and extinct humans and their immediate ancestors, specifically members of the tribe Hominini.

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Etymology

Origin of hominin

First recorded in 1985–90; from New Latin Hominīnī, equivalent to Latin homin- (stem of homō ) “human being, man” + -īnī (plural of the adjective suffix -īnus indicating origin or affiliation); see origin at Homo ( def. ), -ine ¹ ( def. ) )

Compare meaning

How does hominin compare to similar and commonly confused words? Explore the most common comparisons:

• hominin vs. hominid

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

hominin

"Here we have two hominin species that are together. And human evolution is not linear, it's a bushy tree, there are life forms that go extinct."

From Science Daily ● May 16, 2026

It also noted that as many as four hominin lineages may have lived in eastern Africa between 3.0 and 2.5 million years ago: early Homo, Paranthropus, A. garhi, and the Ledi Geraru Australopithecus.

From Science Daily ● May 16, 2026

Instead of needing to assume major contributions from an unknown archaic hominin population in Africa, the model shows how patterns in modern DNA could have emerged from structure within ancestral human populations themselves.

From Science Daily ● Apr. 26, 2026

North and South America and Australia are especially intriguing because they were not inhabited by earlier hominin species before Homo sapiens.

From Science Daily ● Feb. 12, 2026

Prior to that, she was a paleoanthropology researcher and received a National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship in 2016 for work focused on hominin bipedalism.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Feb. 3, 2026