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hominid

hominid

12 7.6
A member of the group that includes humans, chimpanzees and gorillas
  • noun
  • /ˈhɒmɪnɪd/
  • Specialized
translation icon : homínido
  • Within the Rift Valley itself, almost all the fossils are of hominids who died on lakesides, riversides, or wetlands.
  • early hominids
  • bipedal hominids
  • fossil hominids

It's also all of the the hominids that that led up to us, right?

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Examples

  • Take Lucy, for example, the 3.5 million-year-old female hominid discovered in Ethiopia by Donald Johanson in 1974.

    Academic text (1992)
  • Many scientists believe that early hominids used basic tools for hunting and foraging.

  • So there was a hominid living in Europe and Asia before our species existed.

  • Why did early hominids begin to walk on two feet?

    Academic text (2003)
  • Chinese scientists said it belonged to an early hominid, while Western scientists said it looked more apelike.

    Academic text (2006)
  • But we were not the first hominids to use tools or to spread across the continents.

    Academic text (1999)
  • Using tools to obtain and prepare food was an important innovation for hominids and indicated increased brain size and function.

    Academic text (1994)
  • Yes, in retrospect, bipedalism opened up a huge range of radical new possibilities for hominids.

    Academic text (2003)
  • Surely those footprints are as important as those left by hominids at Laetoli, Tanzania, in the story of human development.

    Academic text (2004)
  • However, as Mithen (1996) suggested, even the earliest hominids must have been flexible in exploiting food resources.

    Academic text (2002)

How Apelike

ape
118 1.0
pithecanthrope
  • Archaic
9.9
prehuman
  • Specialized
1 7.7
hominid
  • Specialized
12 7.6
Homo sapiens
  • Specialized
2 4.0

Surface Forms

hominid singular
hominids plural

Morphology

hominid = human (opaque) = homin + id

The base idea relates to 'human' but the form 'homin-' is a Latin combining form and '-id' is a technical biological suffix, so the term is technical and not readily deducible by an average learner.

Etymology

Hominid comes from the Latin homo 'human' and the ending -id 'group' or 'family'. So a hominid is a member of the human family, which is why scientists use it for humans, great apes, and their ancestors.