polygenist

Meanings

1. 1
   noun

   historical: an advocate of polygenism, the now-discredited doctrine that human populations or supposed races had separate origins and could constitute different species

   Many nineteenth-century polygenists used separate-origin claims to support racial hierarchies.

Formed from polygeny + -ist. Polygeny combines Greek poly-, 'many,' with genos or geneia, 'kind, descent, or origin.' The term belongs chiefly to nineteenth-century debates over human origins and became closely associated with racial pseudoscience.

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