humanness

American  

[hyoo-muhn-nis, yoo-] / ˈhyu mən nɪs, ˈyu- /

noun

1. the quality or condition of being human or characteristic of humans.

   Loss of intellect, as when a person is severely brain-damaged, does not mean loss of humanness.

   It’s an essay on the humanness of language—how it serves as a hallmark distinguishing humankind from other animals.

2. human limitation, weakness, or imperfection.

   Employers need to embrace the humanness of their workforce, with all its flaws, frailty, and emotional vulnerability.

   In a fitness class, the sheer humanness of feeling awkward and sweating together relaxes relationships.

3. sympathetic, relatable, or humane quality.

   The memoir was refreshing in its honesty, vulnerability, and humanness.

   Greed can drive people beyond their humanness into great cruelty and inhumanity.

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Other Word Forms

• unhumanness noun

Etymology

Origin of humanness

First recorded in 1690–1700; human ( def. ) + -ness ( def. )

Example Sentences

With the rise of malicious AI agents, increased calls for age verification and bots ruining everything from dating apps to ticket sales, new proof of humanness is necessary.

From The Wall Street Journal

Human-created cultural products like film and writing will be positioned as most valuable, and priced accordingly as luxury goods and artworks, while elevated synthetic content will be “humanwashed” to create a veneer of faux humanness.

From The Wall Street Journal

To surrender such decisions to some putatively wiser entity is, in some essential sense, to surrender our humanness.

From The Wall Street Journal

As soon as you upgrade to Alexa+ or Gemini for Home, the biggest change you’ll notice is the humanness of the assistant.

From The Wall Street Journal

A chief draw, World says, is that people can verify their humanness at an orb without providing personal information, such as, their names, emails, phone numbers and social media profiles.

From Los Angeles Times

Related Words

• humankind
• mankind
• society