Wiktionary

tribe

See also: Tribe

English

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Etymology

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PIE word
*tréyes

From Middle English tribe, tribu, from Old French tribu, from Latin tribus. Doublet of tribus.

Pronunciation

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

Noun

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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
    • 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. (synecdochically) 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.
  4. A socially cohesive group of people within a society.
    • 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.
  5. 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.
  6. (zoology) A group of apes who live and work together.
  7. (taxonomy) A hierarchical rank between family and genus.
  8. A group of affiliated Mardi Gras Indians.
  9. The collective noun for various animals.
  10. (stock breeding) A family of animals descended from some particular female progenitor, through the female line.
    the Duchess tribe of shorthorns

Synonyms

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Derived terms

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Translations

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Verb

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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

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Anagrams

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Middle English

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Alternative forms

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Etymology

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From Old French tribu, from Latin tribus.

Pronunciation

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  • IPA(key): /ˈtriːb(ə)/, /ˈtriːbu/

Noun

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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

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  • English: tribe

References

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