Adam

"tiny human being produced artificially," 1650s, from Latin homunculus (plural homunculi), literally "little person," with -culus, diminutive suffix, + homo (genitive hominis), which technically meant "male human," but it also was used with a sense "the human race, mankind;" while in Vulgar Latin it could be used as "one, anyone, they, people" and in logical and scholastic writing as "a human being, person."

This is conjectured to be from PIE *(dh)ghomon- (source also of Old Irish duine, Welsh dyn, Breton den "man;" Old Prussian smunents, smunets "man;" Old Lithuanian žmuo "person," Lithuanian žmogus "man," žmones "people," Gothic guma, Old High German gomo, Old Norse gume, Old English guma "man"). The literal sense is "earthling," from PIE root *dhghem- "earth" (compare human (adj.)). Other Latin diminutives from homo included homullus, homuncio.

by 1630s as "human being, descendant of Adam" the Biblical first man, from Adam + -ite (1). The term was used from 1620s in reference to Christian perfectionist sects or groups that practice nudism (or, as a 1657 poem has it, "Cast off their petticoats and breeches"), recalling the state of Adam before the Fall. They existed in 2c. North Africa, 14c.-15c. central Europe, and 1840s America. Related: Adamic; Adamitic; Adamitism.

also preadamite, "one who lived before Adam," 1660s, from pre- + Adam + -ite. Originally in reference to the supposed progenitors of the Gentiles, based on a belief that the biblical Adam was the first parent only of the Jews and their kin.