| / English Dictionary |
TRIBE
| Pronunciation (US): |  | (GB): | |
I. (noun)
Sense 1
Meaning:
Group of people related by blood or marriage
Synonyms:
clan; kin; kin group; kindred; kinship group; tribe
Classified under:
Nouns denoting groupings of people or objects
Hypernyms ("tribe" is a kind of...):
social group (people sharing some social relation)
Meronyms (members of "tribe"):
relation; relative (a person related by blood or marriage)
clan member; clansman; clanswoman (a member of a clan)
tribesman (someone who lives in a tribe)
Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "tribe"):
mishpachah; mishpocha ((Yiddish) the entire family network of relatives by blood or marriage (and sometimes close friends))
family; family unit (primary social group; parents and children)
folks (your parents)
family tree; genealogy (successive generations of kin)
totem (a clan or tribe identified by their kinship to a common totemic object)
Tribes of Israel; Twelve Tribes of Israel (twelve kin groups of ancient Israel each traditionally descended from one of the twelve sons of Jacob)
Derivation:
tribal (relating to or characteristic of a tribe)
Sense 2
Meaning:
(biology) a taxonomic category between a genus and a subfamily
Classified under:
Nouns denoting groupings of people or objects
Hypernyms ("tribe" is a kind of...):
taxon; taxonomic category; taxonomic group (animal or plant group having natural relations)
Domain category:
biological science; biology (the science that studies living organisms)
Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "tribe"):
Bovini; tribe Bovini (term not used technically; essentially coextensive with genus Bos)
Bambuseae; tribe Bambuseae (bamboos)
Holonyms ("tribe" is a member of...):
family ((biology) a taxonomic group containing one or more genera)
Sense 3
Meaning:
A federation (as of American Indians)
Synonyms:
federation of tribes; tribe
Classified under:
Nouns denoting groupings of people or objects
Hypernyms ("tribe" is a kind of...):
nation (a federation of tribes (especially Native American tribes))
Meronyms (members of "tribe"):
Maya; Mayan (a member of an American Indian people of Yucatan and Belize and Guatemala who had a culture (which reached its peak between AD 300 and 900) characterized by outstanding architecture and pottery and astronomy)
Nahuatl (a member of any of various Indian peoples of central Mexico)
Olmec (a member of an early Mesoamerican civilization centered around Veracruz that flourished between 1300 and 400 BC)
Domain region:
America; the States; U.S.; U.S.A.; United States; United States of America; US; USA (North American republic containing 50 states - 48 conterminous states in North America plus Alaska in northwest North America and the Hawaiian Islands in the Pacific Ocean; achieved independence in 1776)
Derivation:
tribal (relating to or characteristic of a tribe)
Sense 4
Meaning:
A social division of (usually preliterate) people
Synonyms:
folk; tribe
Classified under:
Nouns denoting groupings of people or objects
Hypernyms ("tribe" is a kind of...):
social group (people sharing some social relation)
Meronyms (members of "tribe"):
moiety (one of two basic subdivisions of a tribe)
Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "tribe"):
phyle (a tribe of ancient Athenians)
Derivation:
tribal (relating to or characteristic of a tribe)
Context examples:
It was initially described among Native Americans belonging to the Haliwa-Saponi tribe of northeastern North Carolina.
(Hereditary Benign Intraepithelial Dyskeratosis, NCI Thesaurus)
Among other things I exhibited this powder, and I told him of its strange properties, how it stimulates those brain centres which control the emotion of fear, and how either madness or death is the fate of the unhappy native who is subjected to the ordeal by the priest of his tribe.
(His Last Bow, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)
In the 1800s, the buffalo were hunted nearly to extinction not only for their valuable hides but also because many U.S. generals, including President Ulysses S. Grant, believed that removing the buffalo would undermine the economies of many of the Native American tribes that depended on them for food and goods and make it easier to push them onto reservations.
(Northern Arapaho Tribe welcomes buffalo herd in Wyoming, United States, Wikinews)
Here, in the whirlpool of European races, the Ugric tribe bore down from Iceland the fighting spirit which Thor and Wodin gave them, which their Berserkers displayed to such fell intent on the seaboards of Europe, ay, and of Asia and Africa too, till the peoples thought that the were-wolves themselves had come.
(Dracula, by Bram Stoker)
Now all tribes agree as to the direction in which Curupuri lives.
(The Lost World, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)
And when Karduk told him all would he well with him when they had overtaken his tribe, he asked, "And then may I rest and move not?"
(Love of Life and Other Stories, by Jack London)
Mary, one of the tribe of Silva, eight years old, keeping watch, raised a screech at sight of his returning consciousness.
(Martin Eden, by Jack London)
How can we be for ever together—sometimes in solitudes, sometimes amidst savage tribes—and unwed?
(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)
The summer camp was being dismantled, and the tribe, bag and baggage, was preparing to go off to the fall hunting.
(White Fang, by Jack London)
It is about one third as large as the Isle of Wight, and extremely fruitful: it is governed by the head of a certain tribe, who are all magicians.
(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)
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