indigenous

CEFRB2

/ɪnˈdɪdʒɪnəs/

adjective

Türkçe translations

Translating…

In plain English

01
adjective
Naturally belonging to a particular place or region.
02
adjective
Extra detail
Innate, inborn.

Examples

Colonists often take a shine to indigenous women.
His love for indigenous Mexican art became his downfall.

At a glance

Sits at B2 on the CEFR scale

Senses: 5
Parts of speech: 1
Citations: 5
Synonyms: 5

Also pronounced

/ɪnˈdaɪ.d͡ʒɛ.nʊs/

Deep Dive

adjective

Extra meanings

Native to a land, especially before colonization.
In particular, of or relating to a people (or their language or culture) that inhabited a region prior to the arrival of people of other cultures which became dominant (e.g., through colonialism), and which maintains a distinct culture.
Original to a geographical area.

More examples

In context

The museum showcases the unique art of the indigenous peoples.
That style of pottery is indigenous to that region.
The Aboriginals were indigenous to Victoria before the World War.

Quick test

Two questions on this entry. Nothing is scored.

Question 1 · Quick check

The blank plants of the region evolved there for thousands of years.

Practise this properly in the app, where the word comes back before you forget it.

Nearby

Citations

The word in print, with each source given in full.

Not only the Indian, but many indigenous insects, birds, and quadrupeds, welcomed the apple-tree to these shores.
1862, Henry David Thoreau, Wild Apples: The History of the Apple Tree
Horses, like camels, had once been indigenous to Latin America but had become extinct.
1997, Eduardo Galeano, Open Veins of Latin America: Five Centuries of the Pillage of a Continent, Monthly Review Press, page 17
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.
2015, Esra Özyürek, Being German, Becoming Muslim: Race, Religion, and Conversion in the New Europe, Princeton University Press, page 23
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.
2007 April, Julie Grundvig, “TAIWAN”, in The Asia Book: A Journey Through Every Country in the Continent, →ISBN, →OCLC, page 103, column 2
The team auctioned off the right to name the new species to publicize the find and raise awareness and funds for the indigenous Lahu people of northern Thailand, a group that Sippawat is part of.
2023 September 26, Hafsa Khalil, “Electric blue tarantula species discovered in Thailand”, in CNN

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Origin

adjective

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.

Deep Dive

adjective

More examples

Related

Quick test

The blank— plants of the region evolved there for thousands of years.

Nearby

Origin

adjective

The blank plants of the region evolved there for thousands of years.