In ancient Greek music theory, the diatonic genus (Greek: διατονικό γένος) is the division of the tetrachord from which the modern diatonic scale evolved. The distinguishing characteristic of the diatonic genus is that its largest interval is about the size of a major second. The other two intervals vary among different tunings.
The word is derived either from the Greek, dia (διά) and tonos (τόνος), meaning "proceeding by whole tones" (Drabkin n.d.), or "through, at the interval of" a "tone" (OED), or from Greek dia and tonikos, meaning "at intervals of a tone" (Dunsby 2002).
Read more about Diatonic Genus: Tunings of The Diatonic, Byzantine Music
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“Methinks it would be some advantage to philosophy if men were named merely in the gross, as they are known. It would be necessary only to know the genus and perhaps the race or variety, to know the individual. We are not prepared to believe that every private soldier in a Roman army had a name of his own,—because we have not supposed that he had a character of his own.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)