humanity

noun

1. (uncountable)Humankind; human beings as a group.

   “Then he commenced to talk, really talk. and inside of two flaps of a herring's fin he had me mesmerized, like Eben Holt's boy at the town hall show. He talked about the ills of humanity, and the glories of health and Nature and service and land knows what all.”

   “At last the concourse is relatively clear of humanity and the task of clearing up can begin.”

   “It is tempting to speculate about the incentives or compulsions that might explain why anyone would take to the skies in [the] basket [of a balloon]: […]; perhaps to moralise on the oneness or fragility of the planet, or to see humanity for the small and circumscribed thing that it is; […].”

   ““The internet”, Eric Schmidt, former chairman of Google, famously observed, “is the first thing that humanity' has built that humanity doesn’t understand, the largest experiment in anarchy that we have ever had.””

2. (uncountable)The human condition or nature.
3. (uncountable)The quality of being benevolent; humane traits of character; humane qualities or aspects.

   “Think of that; by that sweet girl that old man had a child: hold ye then there can be any utter, hopeless harm in Ahab? No, no, my lad; stricken, blasted, if he be, Ahab has his humanities!”

   “Killing Animals Humanely. Humanity requires that animals be killed in the quickest and least painful manner. The following circular has been sent by our American Humane Education Society very widely through the country.”

4. (countable)Any academic subject belonging to the humanities.

   “Philosophy is a humanity while psychology is a science.”