genusses

genusses

1. (nonstandard) plural of genus
   • 1746, Thomas Short, Medicina Britannica: Or, a Treatise on Such Physical Plants, as Are Generally to Be Found in the Fields or Gardens in Great-Britain, London: printed for R. Manby and H. Shute Cox, page xxv:

     Some may perhaps query, Why did the Deity crowd the Surface of our Earth with ſuch a Number of different Sorts of Plants, many of whoſe Virtues we are entire Strangers to, if they have any; others we are uncertain of; others the fatal Experience of many has proved to be certainly noxious; and thoſe that we are beſt acquainted with, we cannot at all Times infallibly depend upon their ſalutiferous Effects; and, by late Diſcoveries from improved Microſcopes, we have Reaſon to ſuſpect that there are yet many Genuſſes and Species of minuter Vegetables ſtill undiſcovered?

   • 1763, A New and Complete Dictionary of Arts and Sciences, 2nd edition, volume I, London: printed for W. Owen, page 416:

     BUTTON-tree, a name ſometimes given to two very distinct genuſſes of plants, the platanus and cephalanthus.

   • 1768, Rowland Jones, Hieroglyfic:^[sic] Or, a Grammatical Introduction to an Universal Hieroglyfic^[sic] Language, London: John Hughs, page 7:

     There are, it ſeems, in phyſics, diſcoverable by the ſignification of words, three univerſal principles or genuſſes of things, namely, ſpace, matter, and motion; which, as to their eſſences, if eſſence, nature, and quality differ in ought but form, are indefinable.

   • 1808, Samuel Latham Mitchill, Edward Miller, editors, The Medical Repository, volume V, New York: T. & J. Swords, page 350:

     The first work, which shall be written in Latin or French, I shall style Nova Genera and Species Plantarum Boreali-Americanarum, and it shall contain accurate descriptions and histories of all the new genusses and species of plants discovered in the United States of America, and published since Linnæus, as well as of those which, though mentioned by that great author, were by him badly described, but more particularly of all new, and undescribed genusses and species I have found, or which have been communicated to me during my travels through the United States: of such new genusses it will contain about fourteen, besides the ten of my annexed essay, on the fungus tribe, to wit: / […]

   • 1811, C. S. Rafinesque, manuscripts, quoted in Zoologische Mededelingen, volume 59, 1985, pages 133–137:

     The Linnean Society of London has in its archives the manuscript of one of C. S. Rafinesque’s very early scientific papers, probably the first ever that he wrote on a carcinological subject. This paper, the original title of which is “Descriptions of Two New Genusses of Crustaceous Heterelos & Yalomus with their Figures”, had been sent by its author to Sir James Edward Smith, president of the Linnean Society, under cover of a letter dated “Palermo, 30th March 1811”, requesting publication “since the Linnean Society accepts com[m]unications from such as are not members”; […] The corrections made at the Linnean Society involve precision of technical terms (e.g., the substitution of “claw” for “nail”, “serrate” for “sawed”), improvement of the Latin (genera for genusses, etc.), and — what may suggest that the assistant was not a native speaker of English — the blunting of gender distinctions literally translated in Rafinesque’s manuscript from the practice of the Romance languages (where he wrote “her structure” the Linnean Society would have it “its structure”). In a letter of 3 May 1812 from Palermo, Rafinesque thanked J. E. Smith “for your kind revision of my Paper on Bertolonia & your corrections of my italianisms”. […] The text (pp. 1–11) is as follows: / “Descriptions & c. / Two Linnean genusses [“genera”] Cancer & Monoculus were composed of such numerous & different varieties of species, that modern zoologists have proved them to be no more two simple genusses [“genera”] nor even one or two Orders in the class of Insects but to form each a division of a whole class sufficiently different from the Insects & which contains more than 50 genusses [“genera”] according to Latreille (Histoire naturelle des Crustacés) while they amount nearly to 80 in my Manuscript delineation of [“the”] said class: […]”

   • 1985, Yugoslav Union of Biological Sciences, Acta Biologica Iugoslavica, page 141:

     Distribution species of genusses Cicindela Linn., Carabus Linn., Omphron^[sic] Latr., Clivina Latr., Broscus Panz., Asaphidion Gozis and Trechus Clairv. at the investigated area.