Back in the eighties, there were roadrace bikes, tourers and the new-fangled MTBs from Calif.
Tourers traditionally had dropped bars, mudguards and racks. They had lower gearing to accomodate the extra luggage weight.
Roadrace bikes were roadrace bikes.
MTBs were 26" fat tyre 'comfort' bikes with touristy low gearing and wider flat handlebars. They were dead easy to ride.
As well as all these, the Brit kids were riding around on 26" youths sports tourers with 'cow horn' ( or better still, Moto X ) handlebars and touristy low gears. I was amoungst them in the seventies.
Some smart Alec came up with an idea of combining a sports tourer with 700C wheels with flat bars and MTB touristy gearing.
They didn't know what to call it, but it became known as the 'Hybrid'.
What some smarter Alecs have done is take a reasonably priced MTB and put road slicks on it. It has the full range of gearing for climbing the shopping mall stairs and low rolling res' tyres for whipping along with the traffic.
Apart from the 26" wheels compared to the 700C wheels of the Hybrid, I would call it a Hybrid.
I rode mine round a 100km Audax last Sunday with surprising ease. Being a converted MTB Hybrid, I wasn't expected to ride very fast but I found myself in the leading group of six riders after the last control.
I will keep my Dawes Giro 500 ( dropped bar sports tourer ) for 200km events next year.