use-icon

HOW TO USE THE DICTIONARY

To look up an entry in The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, use the search window above. For best results, after typing in the word, click on the “Search” button instead of using the “enter” key.

Some compound words (like bus rapid transit, dog whistle, or identity theft) don’t appear on the drop-down list when you type them in the search bar. For best results with compound words, place a quotation mark before the compound word in the search window.

guide to the dictionary

use-icon

THE USAGE PANEL

The Usage Panel is a group of nearly 200 prominent scholars, creative writers, journalists, diplomats, and others in occupations requiring mastery of language. Annual surveys have gauged the acceptability of particular usages and grammatical constructions.

The Panelists

open-icon

AMERICAN HERITAGE DICTIONARY APP

The new American Heritage Dictionary app is now available for iOS and Android.

scroll-icon

THE AMERICAN HERITAGE DICTIONARY BLOG

The articles in our blog examine new words, revised definitions, interesting images from the fifth edition, discussions of usage, and more.

100-words-icon

See word lists from the best-selling 100 Words Series!

Find out more!

open-icon

INTERESTED IN DICTIONARIES?

Check out the Dictionary Society of North America at http://www.dictionarysociety.com

ge·ner·ic (jə-nĕrĭk)
Share:
adj.
1.
a. Relating to or descriptive of an entire group or class: Cancer is a generic term for a group of diseases in which cells proliferate wildly.
b. Lacking specificity; general: made some generic remarks about how to save for retirement.
2. Biology Of or relating to a genus.
3.
a. Relating to or being a product that is sold or distributed without any brand name or without a widely known brand name, especially as a discount alternative to a name-brand product: generic soap.
b. Relating to or being the official nonproprietary name of a drug, under which it is licensed and identified by the manufacturer.
4. Grammar Specifying neither masculine nor feminine gender: generic nouns like waitperson and executive.
n.
1. A product or substance sold under or identified by a generic name.
2. A wine that is a blend of several grape varieties and does not carry the name of any specific grape.

[From Latin genus, gener-, kind; see genə- in the Appendix of Indo-European roots.]

ge·neri·cal·ly adv.
gene·rici·ty (jĕnə-rĭsĭ-tē), ge·ner·ic·ness n.

The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition copyright ©2022 by HarperCollins Publishers. All rights reserved.
 

Indo-European & Semitic Roots Appendices

    Thousands of entries in the dictionary include etymologies that trace their origins back to reconstructed proto-languages. You can obtain more information about these forms in our online appendices:

    Indo-European Roots

    Semitic Roots

    The Indo-European appendix covers nearly half of the Indo-European roots that have left their mark on English words. A more complete treatment of Indo-European roots and the English words derived from them is available in our Dictionary of Indo-European Roots.