tribal
/ˈtɹaɪbəl/
Word Rarity
Uncommon
Frequency: Zipf frequency 4.03 in modern English
8
Scrabble Score
6
Letters
2
Syllables
6
Unique Chars
Meaning
adj
adj
adj
Incorporating designs or styles typical of an indigenous people.
noun
A design or image that has been influenced by indigenous peoples; especially such a tattoo.
Example Sentences
- "social order through tribal law"
- "‘What has he done?’ ‘Oh, killed a few natives. That wouldn’t count so much if it was all ‘tribal’; but he’s ‘gone cheeky’ and threatens wholesale murder. My job is to grab him before he slaughters more.’"
- "a tribal society"
- "tribal history"
- "tribal techno music"
- "a purse with a tribal design"
Etymology
From Latin tribālis. By surface analysis, tribe + -al, first attested in the 1630s. The specific adjectival sense under the defunct theory of recapitulation derives from tribal history as an overly literal learned borrowing from German Stammesgeschichte; ordinarily, Stamm would only be translated as tribe when used in its ethnographic sense.
Origin
- Source language: Latin
Word Breakdown
- Root: tribālis
Regional Pronunciation
- American English: /ˈtɹaɪbəl/
- British English: /ˈtɹaɪbəl/