The term homo can refer disparagingly to a homosexual individual.
Homo is a compositional element that comes from the Greek language and has the idea of “equal” as its meaning. This means that this element allows the generation of compound words based on their meaning .
For example: homosexuality ( homo – sexuality ) is a notion that refers to sexual desire or activity between people of the same sex (man/man, woman/woman).
Concepts that use the compositional element homo
Homonymy , for its part, refers to the link of similarity in the way two words of different meaning or with different grammatical value are pronounced or written: “I have to go to the bank to withdraw money,” “This morning we dived and we saw a beautiful bank.” of fish” , “I'm going to sit on a bench to rest a little” .
Another term that uses this prefix is homogeneous , and denotes that something is part of a group or genus, whose exponents share the same characteristics. It also refers to uniformity, for example, in the composition of a chemical substance or in the result of having mixed various compounds. On a less specific level, a homogeneous group of people can mean that said individuals have similar skills or knowledge, or that they respond to a series of specific requirements such as age, gender or tastes, if it were a statistic or a sociological study that would seek to study a particular portion of the population.
Homology , on the other hand, refers to the equivalence of, for example, two concepts or powers. As explained in the definition of homologue , it can be used to talk about two government positions from different countries that are peers, although there are certain variations due to the laws of each place. At the level of knowledge, homologating two university degrees consists of establishing the percentage of coincidences between the educational programs of two different centers, to enable a person to practice their profession or continue studying abroad; In some cases, to achieve complete compatibility, completion of some complementary work or exam is required.
Same sound, different spelling or meaning
In the field of language, two homophonous words sound the same but have different spellings . Some examples are "honda" and "onda" , "arte" and "harte" , "baso" and "vaso" .
Likewise, there is a phenomenon called homography , which may or may not go hand in hand with homophony; In this case, these are words that are written exactly the same, such as "I said" from the verb say, and "I said" like a hanging jewel.
Human beings and their closest ancestors are part of the genus Homo.
The genus Homo
Written with an initial capital letter ( Homo ), it is the genus that includes the hominid primates that belong to the hominini tribe. Human beings and their closest ancestors belong to the genus Homo .
The genus Homo is believed to have emerged almost two and a half million years ago. Homo rudolfensis and Homo habilis would have been the first exponents of this genus. It should be noted that, with the exception of Homo sapiens (modern humans), all species of Homo have become extinct.
Experts maintain that Homo neanderthalensis (extinct about 30,000 years ago) and Homo floresiensis (which survived until about 12,000 years ago) are the most recent survivors of the genus (beyond the aforementioned Homo sapiens , which still survives).
Among the characteristics of Homo , we can mention their bipedal condition, the absolute verticalization of their skull and the so-called hypercephalization.
A derogatory connotation
Far from Darwinian theory and the search for the origin of the human species, homo can be used as a derogatory synonym for the word homosexual .
Like so many other ways that societies have found to insult homosexuals, it is about using the concept itself with a negative connotation, generating a dead end point of discussion, given that the taste for the same gender in its entirety is attacked and not a particular trait.