• Ethnic

    Pronunciation

    • IPA: en, /ˈɛθ.nɪk/
    • Rhymes: -en, -ɛθnɪk

    Alternative forms

    Origin

    From , from ("pagan", "heathen"), from , from ἔθνος ("a company", later "a people or nation, heathens").

    Full definition of ethnic

    Adjective

    ethnic

    1. Of or relating to a group of people having common racial, ancestral, national, religious or cultural origins.
      There are many ethnic Indonesians in the Netherlands
    2. Characteristic of a foreign or a minority group's culture.
      I like to eat ethnic food
    3. Representative of a folk or traditional mode of expression.
    4. (historical) Heathen, not Jewish, Christian, or Muslim.

    Synonyms

    Derived terms

    Related terms

    Noun

    ethnic

    (plural ethnics)
    1. An ethnic person, especially a foreigner or member of an immigrant community.
    2. (archaic) A heathen, a pagan.
      • King James Version|Preface||||passage=..for the learned know that even in St. Jerome's time, the consul of Rome and his wife were both Ethnics, and about the same time the greatest part of the senate also...
      • 1641, w, s:Of Reformation in England, ...And the people of God, redeemed and washed with Christ's blood, and dignified with so many glorious titles of saints and sons in the Gospel, are now no better reputed than impure ethnics and lay dogs...
    3. (in classical scholarship) The demonym of an Ancient Greek city.
      • 2006. Cohen. The Hellenistic Settlements in Syria, the Red Sea Basin & North Africa, 151:"Coinage with the ethnic ΑΝΤΙΟΧΕΩΝ ΠΡΟΣ ΕΥΦΡΑΤΗΝ survives from the mid-second century A.D."

    Further reading

    • Webster 1913
    • Century 1911
    • Keywords|page=119

    Anagrams

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