means The human race considered as a whole, or the quality of being humane — kindness, compassion, and the better impulses we credit ourselves with.

from From Latin humanitas, meaning 'human nature, kindness, refinement,' built on humanus ('human'), itself from homo ('person, man'). The word arrived in English in the 14th century through Old French humanite, and it has always carried two senses at once — the whole species, and the gentleness we hope distinguishes it. Renaissance scholars stretched it further into the 'humanities,' those studies thought to make a person more fully human. Likely related to humus, 'earth, soil,' a poetic suggestion that the Romans saw 'human' as the earthbound creature — though that link is debated rather than certain.