sb. and a. [As sb. app. ad. F. congénère (16th c. Paré), ad. L. congener of the same race or kind, f. con- together with + gener- (genus) kind; as adj., perh. directly from L. (Cogener is a rare and needless variant.)]
A. sb. A member of the same kind or class with another, or nearly allied to another in character. Const. of or possessive.
a. said of animals and plants that are related according to scientific classification. (Rarely in the strict literal sense ‘of the same genus.’)
1730–6. Bailey (folio), Congeners [L. Congeneres] of the same Generation or Kind.
1731. Miller, Gard. Dict., s.v. Cerasus, This sort of fruit hath been by many people grafted upon the Lawrel, to which it is a congener.
1767. G. White, Selborne, Let. xii. 4. Nov. Might not Canary birds be naturalized to this climate, provided their eggs were put, in the spring, into the nests of some of their congeners, as goldfinches, greenfinches, &c.?
1859. Darwin, Orig. Spec., iii. (1878), 59. In Russia the small Asiatic cockroach has everywhere driven before it its great congener.
1883. Longm. Mag., July, 308. Some Alpine buttercups are snowy-white, while most of their lowland congeners are simply yellow.
b. gen. of persons or things.
1837. Howitt, Rur. Life, VI. xiii. (1862), 544. A congener of these, and yet of a somewhat more civilised grade, is the bird-catcher and trainer.
1866. Rogers, Agric. & Prices, I. xviii. 398. Lard was also used, though its less costly congener, butter, was more frequently employed.
1888. Bryce, Amer. Commw., III. lxxxi. 68. The American shopkeeper … has not the obsequiousness of his European congener.
B. adj. Of the same kind or nature; akin.
1867. Bushnell, Mor. Uses Dark Th., 305. We are made everlastingly congener to each other.
1889. F. Harrison, in Fortn. Rev., Jan., 155. That belief … must further be human, in the sense of sympathetic and congener to man.
