Indian

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English Indien,^[1][2][3] borrowed from Anglo-Norman indien and Middle French indien,^[4][1] formed from Inde (“India”) (compare Ind) and -ien.^[4] The Anglo-Norman word is recorded by the OED from about 1270 or earlier,^[4] and by the Anglo-Norman Dictionary from the third quarter of the 12th century.^[5] Barnhart and Dictionary.com put Medieval Latin Indiānus behind the French word,^[2][3] and Merriam-Webster Unabridged and Etymonline derive the English word from this Latin form directly,^[6][7] while the OED notes only an unrelated classical adjective of the same spelling, the name of a cohort raised by Iulius Indus.^[4] The Shorter Oxford forms it from the name of the country and -an.^[8] The name is from Latin India, from Ancient Greek Ἰνδία (Indía), from Ἰνδός (Indós, “the river Indus”),^[2][9][1] from Old Persian Hindu,^[2][9] itself from Sanskrit सिन्धु (síndhu, “river; the Indus”),^[9][1] or, for Barnhart, a cognate of it.^[2] Old English had Indisc (“Indian”) as the adjective, and the English Indish was common in the 16th century.^[7] Compare Spanish indiano, Portuguese indiano and Italian indiano.^[4]

Earliest recorded meaning

Of or from India: before 1393, in Gower's Confessio Amantis.^[4] As a noun, a person from India: about 1400 in the manuscript of Kyng Alisaunder, a text the OED dates to perhaps before 1300 and Barnhart to probably before 1300.^[4][2] Etymonline gives about 1300 for both the noun and the adjective,^[7] and Dictionary.com 1350–1400.^[3]

Semantic evolution

In medieval Europe the name India covered not only India itself but often the whole distant East.^[10][4] When Columbus reached the Bahamas in 1492 he believed he had arrived at the outer islands of "India", so the new lands were called India or the Indies; they were later told apart as the East Indies and the West Indies, but the name Indian stayed with their inhabitants.^[10][3] English used the noun for the peoples of the Americas from 1553, following Spanish and Portuguese use.^[4][7][11] The adjective followed in 1590, in Spenser,^[4] though Etymonline dates it to the 1610s.^[7] French used indien in this sense from 1588.^[4] The American sense then produced many compounds, such as Indian corn (1620s), Indian file (1758), Indian giver (1848) and Indian summer,^[7] and the shortened Indian for maize (1641).^[4][11] The word also spread to other peoples: the inhabitants of the Philippines (1697), and of Australia, New Zealand and the Pacific (1769, in Cook).^[4][7] Britons living or returned from India were called Indians from 1751.^[4][11] Red Indian, to tell Native Americans from the people of India, is attested by 1831, in Carlyle, in British English.^[7] In American slang Indian, often Injun, meant an uncouth, rowdy person from 1849,^[12] and Rawson, quoted by Etymonline, finds the word unusual among ethnic terms for having had little pejorative value until fairly recently.^[7] In Britain an Indian has been a meal from an Indian restaurant, or the restaurant itself, since 1982.^[11][8] Some plant names survive in dialect, such as Indian-pink for the ragged robin in Gloucestershire.^[13]

Timeline

• before 1393 – adjective, of or from India, in Gower.^[4][11]
• c. 1400 – noun, a person from India, in Kyng Alisaunder.^[4][2] Etymonline dates the noun to about 1300.^[7]
• 1553 – noun, a member of the Indigenous peoples of the Americas, in Eden's translation of Münster.^[4][7][11]
• 1558 – adjective, made in India or of Indian design.^[4]
• 1590 – adjective, of the Indigenous peoples of the Americas, in Spenser's Faerie Queene.^[4]
• 1608 – adjective, made of maize, in North American use.^[4]
• 1637 – noun, any of the Indigenous languages of the Americas.^[11]
• 1641 – noun, maize, in North American use.^[11]
• 1697 – noun, an Indigenous inhabitant of the Philippines, in Dampier.^[4]
• 1751 – noun, a Briton who lives or has lived in India.^[4]
• 1769 – noun, an Indigenous inhabitant of Australia, New Zealand or the Pacific, in Cook.^[4]
• 1834 – noun, the game of cowboys and Indians, or a player in it.^[4]
• 1849 – American slang, an uncouth, rowdy person.^[12]
• 1864 – adjective, of certain chess openings.^[4]
• 1982 – noun, a meal from an Indian restaurant, or the restaurant.^[11]

Meanings

Noun

1. A native, citizen or inhabitant of India or formerly of the East Indies, or a person of Indian descent.^[14][15][4]
2. (old-fashioned) A member of any of the indigenous peoples of the Americas; a Native American.^[14][15][4]
3. (not in scholarly usage) Any of the indigenous languages of the Americas.^[14][3]
4. (British, colloquial) A meal from an Indian restaurant, or the restaurant itself.^[11][8]
5. A player in the children's game of cowboys and Indians.^[4][8]
6. (astronomy) The southern constellation Indus.^[11][8]
7. (North America, rare) Maize, also called Indian corn.^[11][8]
8. (US, slang) An uncouth, rowdy person.^[12]
9. (historical) A European, especially a Briton, who lived or had lived in India: an old Indian.^[4][8]
10. (historical) An indigenous inhabitant of the Philippines.^[4][8]
11. (historical) An indigenous inhabitant of Australia, New Zealand or the Pacific Islands.^[4][8]

Adjective

1. Of or relating to India, its people or its languages.^[14][6][4]
2. Made in India, or of Indian material or design.^[4][8]
3. Of or relating to the indigenous peoples of the Americas or their languages.^[14][15][4]
4. (North America) Made of maize or cornmeal: Indian pudding.^[4]
5. (chess) Of various openings in which Black controls the centre with knights or fianchettoed bishops.^[4]
6. (historical) Of a British person living in, or returned from, British India.^[4]

Word family

• Indianism
• Indianize
• Indianness
• American Indian
• Red Indian
• Indian corn
• Indian file
• Indian giver
• Indian summer

Related words

• Indo-
• India
• Indies
• Ind
• Injun
• Hindu
• indigo
• Amerindian

Usage notes

Dictionary.com explains that American Indian arose in the 18th century for the aboriginal inhabitants of the United States and Canada and later took in those of South America, and that Amerindian and Amerind were then developed to reduce the ambiguity.^[3] Collins now marks Indian for a Native American as old-fashioned, and its use for the Native American languages as not scholarly.^[14]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
3. ^ a b c d e f Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
5. ^ Anglo-Norman Dictionary (AND2), Aberystwyth University, anglo-norman.net (2nd ed., 2005–)
6. ^ a b Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
7. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
8. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
9. ^ a b c Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
10. ^ a b Merriam-Webster's Book of Word Histories, Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
11. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Kay, Christian; Roberts, Jane; Samuels, Michael; Wotherspoon, Irené, eds. (2009), Historical Thesaurus of the Oxford English Dictionary, Oxford: Oxford University Press; online edition (2024)
12. ^ a b c Green, Jonathon (2010), Green's Dictionary of Slang, London: Chambers; digital ed. 2016–, https://greensdictofslang.com
13. ^ Wright, Joseph, ed. (1898–1905), The English Dialect Dictionary, 6 vols., Oxford: Henry Frowde; via EDD Online 4.0, University of Innsbruck (CC BY 4.0)
14. ^ a b c d e f Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
15. ^ a b c Soanes, Catherine; Stevenson, Angus, eds. (2004), Concise Oxford English Dictionary, 11th ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press