in a general sense, is an assemblage of objects, whether persons, animals, plants, inanimate or abstract things, related by some common resemblance in natural qualities. In logic it signifies that which has several species under it; or it may be defined as a universal which is predicable of several things of different species.

In natural history it is used to denote an assemblage of species which possess certain common characters by which they are distinguished from all others. It is subordinate to class and order, and, in some arrangements, to tribe and family. Sometimes a single species, possessing certain peculiar characters distinct from all other species, constitutes a genus.

in Music, signified a particular arrangement of the sounds forming the ancient Greek scales, diatonic, or chromatic, or enharmonic. (See the Musical Histories of Burney, Martini, and Forkel.) (6. v. G.)