English Explanatory Dictionary

generic

English dictionary entry

Meanings

adj
  1. Very broad; pertaining or appropriate to large classes or groups as opposed to specific instances.
  2. Lacking in precision, often in an evasive fashion; vague; imprecise.
  3. Of a product or drug, not having a brand name; nonproprietary in design or contents; fungible with the rest of its class.
  4. Pertaining to genera of life instead of particular species thereof.
  5. Specifying neither masculine nor feminine; epicene; unisex.
  6. Of a procedure, written so as to operate on any data type, the type required being passed as a parameter.
  7. Of a point, having coordinates that are algebraically independent over the base field.
  8. Relating to genre.
  9. Having no distinguishing characteristics; unoriginal.
noun
  1. A product sold under a generic name.
  2. A wine that is a combination of several wines, or made from a combination of several grape varieties.
  3. A term that specifies neither male nor female.
  4. The part of a toponym that identifies the feature's type.

Pronunciation

/dʒᵻˈnɛ.ɹɪk/ en-us-generic.ogg /ˈdʒɛnᵊ.rɪk/ /dʒᵻˈnɛ.rɪk/

Word forms

generic more generic most generic generick generics

Etymology

From Middle French générique, from Latin genus (“genus, kind”) + -ic.

Synonyms

general classic indefinite catholic common ecumenical generic nonsingular nonspecific universal unparticular unsingular unspecific broad fuzzy unbranded blend

Antonyms

specific particular concrete non-generic proprietary branded gendered instantial varietal

Related words

comprehensive gender genus

Derived words

bigeneric biogeneric cogeneric extrageneric Generica generically generic class generic element generic epithet generic function genericide generic interval genericise genericism genericity genericization genericize generic name genericness generic platformer generic programming generic property generic term generic they generic top-level domain generic type generic you generify heterogeneric infrageneric intergeneric intrageneric monogeneric multigeneric nongeneric nongenerically nongenericness polygeneric pseudogeneric quadrigeneric semigeneric subgeneric supergeneric suprageneric trigeneric unigeneric
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