Generic means belonging to a whole class rather than to one particular maker — plain, unbranded, no name on the box. The supermarket's white-and-blue packet of paracetamol sitting next to the branded one that costs three times as much.
The medical use is exact and worth knowing: a generic drug has the same active ingredient as the brand and costs less, because the patent has run out. The everyday use is a mild insult — a generic email, generic advice, a generic hotel room with a picture of a boat on the wall — meaning it has no character of its own. There is a formal sense as well: a generic term covers the whole group, so dog is generic and terrier is specific. In computing, generic code is written to work with any type of data. The noun generics means unbranded medicines, and the adverb is generically.
1adjectivegenericBelonging to a whole class or group rather than to one particular member.
“Bird is a generic word that covers everything from a wren to an ostrich.”
synonyms: general
2adjectiveunbrandedSold without a brand name.
“The pharmacy offered a generic version at half the price.”
synonyms: unbranded
3adjectiveblandHaving no character of its own; ordinary and forgettable.
“The song is pleasant but completely generic.”
synonyms: bland, nondescript
Latin genus meant kind or class — the same genus biologists still use above species. Middle French made générique from it, and English took it in. To call something generic is to say it belongs to the kind and to nothing smaller.
Proto-Indo-European
*ǵenh₁-
Latin
genus — genus, kind
Middle French
générique
English, today
generic
From Middle French générique, from Latin genus (“genus, kind”) + -ic.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA