indigenous
/ɪnˈdɪd͡ʒənəs/
Word Rarity
Uncommon
Frequency: 4.16 in modern English
12
Scrabble Score
10
Letters
4
Syllables
8
Unique Chars
Meaning
adj
Native to a land, especially before colonization.
adj
Native to a land, especially before colonization.
adj
Original to a geographical area.
adj
Alternative letter-case form of indigenous (“native, relating to the native inhabitants of a land”).
Example Sentences
- "The Aboriginals were indigenous to Victoria before the World War."
- "Not only the Indian, but many indigenous insects, birds, and quadrupeds, welcomed the apple-tree to these shores."
- "Horses, like camels, had once been indigenous to Latin America but had become extinct."
- "Berlin is unique in being home to numerous East German converts to Islam who belong to the same German-speaking Muslim communities as West German converts. […] I attempt in this book to give a good sense of the diversity of contemporary indigenous Sunni Muslims in Germany, while pointing to commonalities and differences."
- "The Ainu are the indigenous ethnic group of Japan's Hokkaido Island."
- "About 98 per cent of Taiwan's inhabitants are Han Chinese, a diverse mix of ethnic and linguistic groups, including Hakka, Cantonese and Fujianese, who came from China's southern coast. Taiwan's other two per cent are from one of the nine indigenous tribes, which are scattered throughout the island but largely concentrated along the east coast and in the Central Mountain Range."
Etymology
Borrowed from Late Latin indigenus (“native, born in a country”), from indi- (indu-), an old derivative of in (“in”), gen- the root of gignō (“give birth to”), and English -ous. Compare indigene, Ancient Greek ἐνδογενής (endogenḗs, “born in the house”), and the separately formed piecewise doublet endogenous. Unrelated to Indian.
Word Breakdown
- Root: *ǵenh₁-
Regional Pronunciation
- American English: /ɪnˈdɪd͡ʒənəs/
- British English: /ɪnˈdɪdʒɪnəs/