Jump to content

tribe

From Wiktionary, the free dictionary
See also: Tribe

English

[edit]
English Wikipedia has an article on:
Wikipedia

Etymology

[edit]
PIE word
*tréyes

From Middle English tribe, tribu, from Old French tribu, from Latin tribus. Doublet of tribus. Displaced native Old English hād (“tribe, group”).

Pronunciation

[edit]
  • IPA(key): /tɹaɪb/
  • Audio (US):(file)
  • Rhymes: -aɪb

Noun

[edit]

tribe (plural tribes)

  1. (history, anthropology) An ethnic group larger than a band or clan (and which may contain clans) but smaller than a nation (and which in turn may constitute a nation with other tribes). The tribe is often the basis of ethnic identity.
    the Twelve Tribes of Israel; Germanic tribes; Celtic tribes
    The Formation of Kazakh Identity: From Tribe to Nation-state
    • 1945, E[lizabeth] G[idley] Withycombe, “Introduction”, in The Oxford Dictionary of English Christian Names, Oxford, Oxfordshire: Clarendon Press, →OCLC, page xiii:
      If two persons bore the same name, […] ambiguity was avoided by […] indicating their place of origin, the name of the tribe or deme being added for persons of the same town […] , and the name of the country or town for foreigners […] .
    • 2025 April 4, Lex Harvey and Esha Mitra, “US tourist arrested after allegedly attempting to contact ‘world’s most isolated’ tribe”, in CNN‎[1]:
      There have been other encounters with uncontacted tribes in recent years.
      In February, a young man from an isolated Indigenous tribe in Brazil made brief contact with the outside world before returning to the Amazon rainforest.
  2. (synecdochic) A tribal nation or people.
    • 1911, Cyrus Thomas, Indian Languages of Mexico and Central America‎[2]:
      This leaves for consideration of this group of small tribes, or subtribes, so far as mapped by the writer quoted, the Teule, Cazcan, and Tecuexe.
  3. (informal, derogatory) A nation or people considered culturally primitive, as may be the case in Africa, Australia or Native America.
  5. A socially cohesive group of people within a society.
    Near-synonyms: nation; ingroup
    She found her tribe among fellow cross-stitchers.
    • 2005, Sean Dooley, The Big Twitch, Sydney: Allen and Unwin, page 26:
      The thought of spending a year in close company with twitchers chilled me to the core. Not that I have anything against them, I am terribly fond of the members of the tribe, it is just that basically, they are a bunch of obsessive freaks.
  6. A class or group of things.
    • 1972, Carol A. Nemeyer, Scholarly Reprint Publishing in the United States, New York, N.Y.: R. R. Bowker Co., →ISBN, page 7:
      In 1968, estimates of the number of active reprint publishers ranged from about 20 to 100 publishers. The fact that almost 300 U.S. reprint publishers have been identified is evidence that the reprint tribe continues to increase.
  7. (taxonomy) A hierarchical rank between family and genus.
    • 1960, Doklady. Biological Sciences Sections, volumes 132–135, Washington, D.C.: American Institute of Biological Sciences, →ISSN, →OCLC, page 640, column 2:
      The tempo of evolution in South American hamsters was very rapid – in the course of the Pliocene and Anthropocene 40 genera were formed here, at which time a series of them attained the level of tribe and subtribe (Oxymycteri, Phyllotiini, Ichthyomyini).
    • 1868, David Meredith Reese, editor, (Please provide the book title or journal name)‎[3], Barnes, page 184:
      This family includes the whole of the wellknown tribe of Pigeons and Doves.
    • 1842, The Encyclopaedia Britannica, Or, Dictionary of Arts, Sciences, and General Literature‎[4], volume 21, Tibet, page 256:
      It is the most beautiful species among the whole tribe of goats; of various colours, black, white, of a faint bluish tinge, and of a shade somewhat lighter than a fawn.
    • 1885, Thomas Bewick, Memorial Edition of Thomas Bewick's Works: A general history of quadrupeds‎[5], B. Quaritch, page 99:
      The large head and high forehead, together with the assinine ears and tail, of the Hart-Beest, render it one of the least handsome of the whole tribe of Antelopes.
    • 1925, Karl Alfred von Zittel, Arthur Smith Woodward, Max Schlosser, Text-book of Paleontology‎[6], volume 3, Macmillan and Company, Limited, page 208:
      There is good reason in favour of dividing the extensive tribe of Antelopes into two groups, differing as to characters of the dentition, and to unite these groups with the Ovines and Bovines.
    • 1870, Delabere Pritchett Blaine, An Encyclopedia of Rural Sports‎[7], Longmans, Green, Reader, and Dyer, page 53:
      Almost all the tribe of antelopes are of a gentle and social nature.
  8. A species or group of similar species of animal.
    • 1808, G. L. Leclerc, Count de Buffon, Natural History of Birds, Fish, Insects and Reptiles‎[8], H.D. Symonds, The Cod:
      The cod may not improperly be placed at the head of the migrating or wandering tribe of fish.
    • 2022, Max Heindel, Gleanings of a Mystic: A Series of Essays on Practical Mysticism‎[9]:
      If one wants to study the tribe of lions or the tribe of tigers, all that is necessary is to study one individual, for it has neither choice nor prerogative, but acts entirely according to the dictates of the group spirit
  9. A group of affiliated Mardi Gras Indians.
  10. A collective noun for various animals.
  11. (stock breeding) A family of animals descended from some particular female progenitor, through the female line.
    the Duchess tribe of shorthorns

Synonyms

[edit]

Derived terms

[edit]

Translations

[edit]
The translations below need to be checked and inserted above into the appropriate translation tables. See instructions at Wiktionary:Entry layout § Translations.
Translations to be checked

Verb

[edit]

tribe (third-person singular simple present tribes, present participle tribing, simple past and past participle tribed)

  1. (transitive) To distribute into tribes or classes; to categorize.
    • 1696-1699, William Nicolson, English Historical Library
      Our fowl, fish, and quadruped are well tribed.

See also

[edit]

Anagrams

[edit]

Middle English

[edit]

Alternative forms

[edit]

Etymology

[edit]

From Old French tribu, from Latin tribus.

Pronunciation

[edit]
  • IPA(key): /ˈtriːb(ə)/, /ˈtriːbu/

Noun

[edit]

tribe (plural tribus)

  1. One of the twelve tribes of Israel.
  2. (rare) Any tribe or kin group.
  3. (rare) A league or grouping.

Descendants

[edit]
  • English: tribe

References

[edit]
Retrieved from "https://en.wiktionary.org/w/index.php?title=tribe&oldid=93433738"