Etymologically
Log in

tribe

This is the current revision of this entry, as edited by bogdan on 16 October 2026 at 14:18. This address is a permanent link to this version.
Changes in this edit History

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

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