nomad

Etymology

It is borrowed from Middle French nomade^[2][3][4][5] and directly borrowed from Latin nomas (“member of a wandering pastoral people”), plural nomades,^[6][7][3][8] from Ancient Greek νομάς (nomás, “roaming in search of pasture”), genitive νομάδος (nomádos),^[9][2][7] formed from νομός (nomós, “pasture; land allotted”) with the suffix -άς (-ás).^[6][9][2] The noun is related to νέμειν (némein, “to deal out, allot; to pasture”),^[9][10][11] from Proto-Indo-European *nem- (“to divide, allot”).^[9][2][5] The OED notes that the first English record follows the Middle French plural nomades; the French noun is recorded from 1540.^[6] English first had the plural nomades (1541 in the OED; 1555 in Barnhart, of wandering groups in Arabia).^[6][7]

Earliest recorded meaning

A member of a people that moves from place to place to find pasture for its animals, with no fixed home: 1587, in Sidney and Golding's translation of Philippe de Mornay.^[6][7]

Semantic evolution

Ayto explains that the Greek verb at its root first meant to deal out, then also to put animals out to pasture; the adjective nomás described those who wandered to find pasture for their herds, and its plural named such pastoral peoples.^[10] In English the word kept that sense, and was extended to any person who keeps moving from place to place, a wanderer.^[6][11] It was used as an adjective, "nomadic", from 1798.^[6] The OED notes that the pronunciation with a short vowel in the first syllable, /ˈnɒmæd/, was common in the 19th century and survived as a British variant into the 20th.^[6]

Timeline

• 1541 – the plural nomades, nomadic peoples.^[6] Barnhart dates it to 1555.^[7]
• 1587 – a member of a people that moves about to find pasture.^[6][7]
• 1798 – adjective, nomadic.^[6]
• 1835 – adjective, wandering, roving.^[6]

Meanings

Noun

1. A member of a people that has no permanent home and moves from place to place, usually with the seasons, to find pasture or food.^[11][12][6]
2. A person who keeps moving from place to place; a wanderer.^[11][6]

Adjective

1. Nomadic; roving: nomad herders.^[12][6]

Word family

• nomadic
• nomadically
• nomadism
• nomadize
• nonnomad
• seminomad

Related words

• nemesis
• economy
• nome
• nimble

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
3. ^ a b Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
4. ^ Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
5. ^ a b The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
6. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
7. ^ a b c d e f Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
8. ^ Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
9. ^ a b c d Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
10. ^ a b Ayto, John (2005), Word Origins: The Secret Histories of English Words from A to Z, 2nd ed., London: A & C Black
11. ^ a b c d Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
12. ^ a b Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster