Humankind is all the people of the earth taken together. The future of humankind, a step for humankind, throughout humankind.
It came into wide use as the replacement for mankind, which was felt to leave half of it out. It is more formal than people and belongs to speeches and to writing that takes the long view.
1nounhumankindAll the people of the earth taken together.
“The invention of writing was one of the greatest steps in the history of humankind.”
humankind is a people.
Middle English
humayne
English
human
English, today
humankind
Built from
From human + -kind. human comes from Middle English humayne. From Late Middle English humaigne, humayne, humain, from Middle French humain, from Old French humain, umain (“of or belonging to man”), from Latin hūmānus (“of man, human”); see there for further details. Spelling human has been predominant since the early 18th century. Compare, and possibly related to man.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA