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From The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.44 [gcide]:
Humanity \Hu*man"i*ty\, noun; pl. {Humanities}. [L. humanitas: cf. F. humanit['e]. See {Human}.]
1. The quality of being human; the peculiar nature of man, by which he is distinguished from other beings.
2. Mankind collectively; the human race.
But hearing oftentimes The still, and music humanity. --Wordsworth.
It is a debt we owe to humanity. --S. S. Smith.
3. The quality of being humane; the kind feelings, dispositions, and sympathies of man; especially, a disposition to relieve persons or animals in distress, and to treat all creatures with kindness and tenderness. ''The common offices of humanity and friendship.'' --Locke.
4. Mental cultivation; liberal education; instruction in classical and polite literature.
Polished with humanity and the study of witty science. --Holland.
5. pl. (With definite article) The branches of polite or elegant learning; as language, rhetoric, poetry, and the ancient classics; belles-letters.
Note: The cultivation of the languages, literature, history, and arch[ae]ology of Greece and Rome, were very commonly called liter[ae] humaniores, or, in English, the humanities, . . . by way of opposition to the liter[ae] divin[ae], or divinity. --G. P. Marsh.
From WordNet (r) 2.0 [wn]:
humanity
noun
1: all of the inhabitants of the earth; "all the world loves a lover"; "she always used 'humankind' because 'mankind' seemed to slight the women" [syn: {world}, {human race}, {humankind}, {human beings}, {humans}, {mankind}, {man}]
2: the quality of being humane
3: the quality of being human; "he feared the speedy decline of all manhood" [syn: {humanness}, {manhood}]
From Moby Thesaurus II by Grady Ward, 1.0 [moby-thes]:
105 Moby Thesaurus words for "humanity": Adam, Hominidae, Homo sapiens, acceptance, affectionateness, beneficence, benevolence, benignancy, benignity, brotherhood, charitableness, clay, clemency, clementness, commiseration, community, compassion, condolence, consideration, easiness, easygoingness, fallen humanity, favor, feeling, feeling of kinship, fellow feeling, flesh, forbearance, forbearing, forgiveness, frailty, fraternal feeling, generation of man, generosity, gentleness, genus Homo, goodness, goodness of heart, grace, graciousness, heart of gold, helpfulness, hominid, homo, human equation, human family, human frailty, human nature, human race, human species, human weakness, humaneness, humankind, humanness, kindheartedness, kindliness, kindly disposition, kindness, laxness, le genre humain, lenience, leniency, lenientness, lenity, loving kindness, magnanimity, man, mankind, mercifulness, mercy, mildness, mitigation, moderateness, mortal flesh, mortality, mortals, niceness, pardon, pathos, patience, people, pity, quarter, race of man, relief, reprieve, ruth, self-pity, sensitivity, society, softheartedness, softness, soul of kindness, sympathy, tenderheartedness, tenderness, the masses, the public, tolerance, understanding, unselfishness, warmheartedness, warmth, warmth of heart, weakness
From THE DEVIL'S DICTIONARY ((C)1911 Released April 15 1993) [devils]:
HUMANITY, noun The human race, collectively, exclusive of the anthropoid poets.
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