Hominids and Hominins

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The Australian Museum provides a helpful definition of the terms hominid and hominin:

  • Hominid – the group consisting of all modern and extinct Great Apes (that is, modern humans, chimpanzees, gorillas and orang-utans plus all their immediate ancestors).
  • Hominin – the group consisting of modern humans, extinct human species and all our immediate ancestors (including members of the genera Homo, Australopithecus, Paranthropus and Ardipithecus).



not to be confused with:

Humanoids

humanoid (adjective)

Possibly a pedant in a tight spot might use the adjective< humanoid to refer to a hominin or hominid, but it is best left in the realm of science fiction.

Lexico.com's definition for the adjective is

Having an appearance or character resembling that of a human.

and its first example is

‘a small, green, and hideously warty humanoid figure’

humanoid (noun)