1986, initialism (acronym) from human immunodeficiency virus, name for either of the two viruses that cause AIDS.
masc. proper name, the biblical name of the first man, progenitor of the human race, from Hebrew adam "man," literally "(the one formed from the) ground" (Hebrew adamah "ground"); compare Latin homo "man," humanus "human," humus "earth, ground, soil." Compare homunculus.
The name also was used to signify the evil inherent in human nature (as a consequence of Adam's fall), and other qualities (e.g. nakedness, gardening) associated with the biblical Adam. Adam's ale for "water" is colloquial from 1640s. To not know(someone)from Adam "not know him at all" is recorded by 1784 (with later elaborations up to from Adam's off ox, 1880). The pet form of the name in Middle English was Addy, hence Addison; other old pet forms (Adkin, Adcock) also survive in surnames.
1966 in reference to an alternative philosophy and human potential movement, from Esalen Institute in Big Sur, California, U.S., from Esselen, name of an extinct Native American people of the California coast, for which Bright gives no etymology.
from Greek Beroia, name of a town in Macedonia. The name was taken up by Scottish dissenters in reference to Acts xvii.11 where the Christians of that town based faith on Scripture rather than human authority.
1650s, in reference to doctrine of Cornelius Jansen (1585-1638), Catholic bishop of Ypres, who maintained the perverseness and inability for good of the natural human will. The term is prominent in 17c.-18c. religious writing, often as a reproach. The surname is the Flemish equivalent of Johnson. Related: Jansenist.
type of early modern human, 1869, named for the rock shelter site at Cro-Magnon, a hill in the Dordogne department near Les Eyzies, France, where several skeletons were found in 1868 and recognized as fossil Homo sapiens. The name is said to be from Occitan cro "cavity" + Magnon, a name of an owner of the land around the shelter.
masc. proper name, Biblical third son of Adam and ancestor of all the surviving human race via Noah, literally "set, appointed," from Hebrew Sheth, from shith "to put, set." The Gnostic sect of Sethites (1765) flourished 2c. and believed Christ was a reappearance of Seth, whom they venerated as the first spiritual man.
1640s (n.); 1690s (adj.), in reference to followers or doctrines of Faustus Socinus, Latinized name of Fausto Sozzini (1539-1604), Italian anti-trinitarian theologian who held Christ to be human, if divinely endowed, and the Holy Spirit to be divine energy, not a person. He broke with the Church and organized the Polish Brethren.
by 1953, name for human anti-coagulant use of the rat poison warfarin sodium, abstracted from the chemical name, 3-(α-acetonylbenzyl)-4-hydroxycoumarin; earlier known as Dicoumarol, it attained publicity when it was used in 1955 to treat U.S. President Dwight Eisenhower after a heart attack. Coumarin as the name of an aromatic crystalline substance is by 1830 in English, from French coumarine, from coumarou, the native name in Guyana of the tonka or tonquin bean, one source of the substance.
1724, a Latinization of Chinese K'ung Fu-tzu "K'ung the philosopher (or Master)" (c. 551 B.C.E.-c. 479 B.C.E.), who sought to remedy the degeneracy and oppression of his time by the spread of virtue and learning. The name first appears in the West in a Latin publication of Chinese works (Paris, 1687).
His ethico-political philosophy is based on proper observance of the relationships of human life (parent/child, husband/wife, prince/subject, etc.). The term Confucianism (1836) sometimes is extended to ancient Chinese speculative philosophy generally. Related: Confucian (adj.), 1759.
