HUMAN NATURE

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does human nature mean? 

• HUMAN NATURE (noun)
  The noun HUMAN NATURE has 1 sense:

1. the shared psychological attributes of humankind that are assumed to be shared by all human beings

  Familiarity information: HUMAN NATURE used as a noun is very rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• HUMAN NATURE (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

The shared psychological attributes of humankind that are assumed to be shared by all human beings

Classified under:

Nouns denoting attributes of people and objects

Context example:

a great observer of human nature

Hypernyms ("human nature" is a kind of...):

attribute (an abstraction belonging to or characteristic of an entity)

 Context examples 

The cottage of my protectors had been the only school in which I had studied human nature, but this book developed new and mightier scenes of action.

(Frankenstein, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley)

Such varieties of human nature as they are in the habit of witnessing!

(Persuasion, by Jane Austen)

You feel, as you always do, what is most to the credit of human nature.

(Northanger Abbey, by Jane Austen)

He said he thought it was human nature.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

It is only in accordance with general principles of human nature that the "bloofer lady" should be the popular rôle at these al fresco performances.

(Dracula, by Bram Stoker)

Human nature is a strange mixture, Watson.

(The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

But human nature was very complex.

(The Lost World, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

You have given us an amusing sketch, and human nature cannot say it was not so.

(Mansfield Park, by Jane Austen)

Human nature is so well disposed towards those who are in interesting situations, that a young person, who either marries or dies, is sure of being kindly spoken of.

(Emma, by Jane Austen)

Ah! Elinor, said John, your reasoning is very good, but it is founded on ignorance of human nature.

(Sense and Sensibility, by Jane Austen)