monogenist

Meanings

1. 1
   noun

   historical: an advocate of monogenism, the view that all human populations share a single origin and belong to one species

   A nineteenth-century monogenist rejected the polygenist claim that human groups had arisen as separate species.

2. 2
   adj

   historical: relating to or supporting a single-origin account of humankind or another lineage

   The monogenist argument emphasized the biological unity of humanity.

Formed from monogeny + -ist. Monogeny combines Greek mono-, 'single,' with genos or geneia, 'kind, descent, or origin.' The word is chiefly historical, naming one side of nineteenth-century anthropological and theological debates over human unity.

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