homunculus

• homonculus

Borrowed from Latin homunculus, diminutive of homō (“man”).

• (UK) IPA^(key): /hɒˈmʌŋk.jʊ.ləs/
• (US) IPA^(key): /həˈmʌŋk.jə.ləs/, /hoʊˈmʌŋk.jə.ləs/

• Audio (US):

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homunculus (plural homunculi)

1. A miniature man, once imagined by spermists to be present in human sperm.
   • 1963, Lester del Rey, The Sky Is Falling:

     Ser Perth stayed near him most of the time now. The man was obviously worried, but tried not to show it. "We've managed to get some testosterone from a blond homunculus," he reported. "That should put you on your feet in no time. Don't worry, young man we'll keep you vivified somehow until the Sign changes." But he didn't sound convincing.

   • 2025 May 7, Nina Siegal, “A Rarely Seen Angel With a Lesson From History”, in The New York Times‎^[1], →ISSN, archived from the original on 8 May 2025:

     “It’s this snaggletoothed, little bird-footed homunculus caricature,” Bourneuf said. “Many artists at this time were trying to make new altarpieces. Klee tended to take a very skeptical distance from the sort of grandiose projects of many of his expressionist peers, so I think it’s actually kind of mocking those hopes.”

2. The nerve map of the human body that exists on the parietal lobe of the human brain.

• For quotations using this term, see Citations:homunculus.

• cortical homunculus
• homunculus argument

• homo
• homunculine

• manikin

• “homunculus”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.
• William Dwight Whitney, Benjamin E[li] Smith, editors (1911), “homunculus”, in The Century Dictionary […], New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., →OCLC.
• “homunculus”, in OneLook Dictionary Search.

• omuncolo

Unadapted borrowing from Latin homunculus (“little man”). Compare the adapted borrowing omuncolo.

• IPA^(key): /oˈmun.ku.lus/
• Rhymes: -unkulus
• Hyphenation: ho‧mùn‧cu‧lus

homunculus m (invariable)

2. (alchemy, folklore) homunculus (a legendary figure resembling a little man, who was said to be created through alchemy)
4. (historical, biology) homunculus (the little man believed by preformationists to be inside human sperm)
6. (physiology, neuroscience) homunculus (nerve map realized as a distorted representation of the human body)

   homunculus corticale ― cortical homunculus

   homunculus motorio ― motor homunculus

• (sense 1 and 2): homunculus (alchimia) on the Italian Wikipedia.Wikipedia ^it
• (sense 3): homunculus corticale on the Italian Wikipedia.Wikipedia ^it
• omuncolo in Treccani.it – Vocabolario Treccani on line, Istituto dell'Enciclopedia Italiana
• homunculus in Dizionario Italiano Olivetti, Olivetti Media Communication

From homō, hominis +‎ -culus.

• (Classical Latin) IPA^(key): [hɔˈmʊŋ.kʊ.ɫʊs]
• (modern Italianate Ecclesiastical) IPA^(key): [oˈmuŋ.ku.lus]

homunculus m (genitive homunculī); second declension

1. diminutive of homō (“man”)
2. a little or weak man, homunculus
3. (rare) a dwarf

   Synonyms: nānus, pūmiliō

Second-declension noun.

• → Catalan: homuncle
• → English: homunculus
• → Spanish: homúnculo
• → French: homuncule
• → German: Homunkulus
• → Italian: homunculus
• → Japanese: ホムンクルス
• → Portuguese: homúnculo
• → Romanian: homunculus
• → Russian: гому́нкул (gomúnkul)

• “homunculus”, in Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879) A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
• “homunculus”, in Charlton T. Lewis (1891) An Elementary Latin Dictionary, New York: Harper & Brothers
• homunculus in Gaffiot, Félix (1934) Dictionnaire illustré latin-français, Hachette.

Borrowed from Latin homunculus.

homunculus m (plural homunculuși)

1. homunculus