What make a demihuman "Demihuman"?

[Ai-chan]

What is demihuman? What makes an entity categorized as demihuman? Is demihuman only limited to animals that resemble humans? Or does it depend on the author's will?

prefix
prefix: demi-

1. 1.
   half; half-size.
   "demisemiquaver"
   
   
2. 2.
   partially; in an inferior degree.
   "demigod"

It's anything that has less human in them. Beastmen is easy to consider as demihuman, because they look and act like human but clearly have less human features than actual humans. You can argue that demonkin are also demihuman, if they look human, but have extra features making them clearly not human. Similarly, elves are also demihuman because they look like human, except for their ears, which are clearly not human.

So just think of human being. Then replace the ears, now you got a demihuman, because it's no longer fully human. Or add tails, and it's automatically not human, because humans don't have tails, but other than the tail, the person looks human, so that's why he's a demihuman, because he's not fully human. Orcs are also demihuman, because they have all human features, except for the huge canines, and huge, green bodies.

 

[TheTrinary]

It literally means half human.

If a character was half human and half concrete wall, that'd be a demi human.

 

[AliceShiki]

I'd usually assume demi-human is a derogatory term for any humanoid being that happens to have skin that is similar to humans, but that has some other characteristics that clearly aren't the same as a human... Such as a kitsune.

Of course, as the author, you're allowed to use it differently and to refer to whatever you want, but I think it makes the most sense as a derogatory term for wildly different races that should not be batched together.

 

[Cipiteca396]

anthropomorphic

'Human shaped'. Not sure that's better, lol. It might also get confusing because anthropomorphic refers to things like 'the wind howled'. Assigning human traits to non-human(non-sapient even) things.
If we use the furry scale, a demi-human is probably just ears and tail, while an anthropomorph would be fully animal but on two legs.

 

[AnUnknownMan]

I recommend looking into the manga version of (age warning) Interspecies reviewers chapter 30 if you want off the shelf beast-people.
To get more slightly more creative, assign traits to regions. Either have them breed together and create mixed chimera-like individuals, or have them divided into strict tribes lumped together despite being otherwise biologically or aesthetically incompatible.
Lastly, you can do research and customize on a trait-by-trait basis to create unique individuals. Like a mostly human man with gills who puke whenever he eats surface food. This has the drawback of sometimes being ugly.