tribe

Pronunciation

• IPA: /tɹaɪb/^[1]

Etymology

It is Middle English tribu, later tribe, borrowed from Old French tribu or directly Latin tribus (“one of the three divisions of the Roman people”),^[2][3][4] a word of unknown origin,^[3] generally held to contain tri-, three (see tri-), and to represent a tripartite division;^[3][5][6] Barnhart takes the second element from the root of be.^[2] It is cognate with Umbrian trifu.^[2]

Earliest recorded meaning

One of the twelve divisions of the ancient Hebrews: about 1250, in Genesis and Exodus.^[2][7]

Semantic evolution

The Twelve Tribes of Israel are the oldest sense in English and almost the only one in Middle English; the Latin word was a specialized Church sense translating Greek phylē, a race or clan.^[3][6] The Roman tribes, perhaps the Latins, Sabines and Etruscans, are from 1533 in English,^[7][3] and the Greek phylai from 1697.^[7] Any ethnic group, especially one under a chief, is first recorded in Shakespeare's Merchant of Venice (1596);^[2] the Century Dictionary defined it as a division of a barbarous people under a recognized chief, but it was used colloquially of any group of a kind.^[3] In biology, a group in classification is 17th-century.^[4] Tribal is from 1632 and tribesman from 1798.^[2]

Timeline

• c. 1250 – a tribe of Israel.^[2]
• c. 1380 – the form tribe.^[2]
• 1533 – a Roman tribe.^[7]
• 1596 – an ethnic group.^[2]
• 1632 – tribal.^[2]

Modern meaning

Noun

1. A social group of families or clans sharing a common ancestry, culture and leadership.
2. A division of an ancient people, such as one of the three divisions of the Romans or the twelve tribes of Israel.
3. (informal) Any group of people of a kind.
4. (biology) A group in the classification of animals or plants.

Word family

• subtribe
• tribesman
• tribespeople
• tribeswoman
• undertribe
• tribal
• tribalism
• tribelet

Related words

• tribune
• tribunal
• tribute
• attribute

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
3. ^ a b c d e f Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
4. ^ a b Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
5. ^ Pearsall, Judy, ed. (1998), The New Oxford Dictionary of English, Oxford: Clarendon Press
6. ^ a b Cresswell, Julia (2021), Oxford Dictionary of Word Origins, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
7. ^ a b c d Simpson, J. A.; Weiner, E. S. C., eds. (1989), The Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press