in natural history, the word used to signify all the species of natural bodies, which agree in certain essential and peculiar characters, and therefore all of the same family or kind; so that the word used as the generic name equally expresses every one of them, and some other words expressive of the peculiar qualities or figures of each are added, in order to denote them singly, and make up what is called the specific name. See **Botany** and **Zoology**.