tribe

CEFRB1

/tɹaɪb/

noun

Türkçe translations

Translating…

In plain English

  1. 01

    noun

    A social group united by common ancestry, culture, or language.

  2. 02

    noun

    Extra detail

    A nation or people considered culturally primitive, as may be the case in Africa, Australia or Native America.

Examples

  • Europeans tried to civilize the tribe.

  • That tribe worships its ancestors.

At a glance

Sits at B1 on the CEFR scale

Senses
5
Parts of speech
1
Citations
5
Synonyms
3

Deep Dive

noun

Extra meanings
  1. A tribal nation or people.

  2. An ethnic group larger than a band or clan (and which may contain clans) but smaller than a nation (and which in turn may constitute a nation with other tribes). The tribe is often the basis of ethnic identity.

  3. A socially cohesive group of people within a society.

More examples

In context
  • They were a nomadic horse-riding tribe.

  • The Formation of Kazakh Identity: From Tribe to Nation-state

  • the Twelve Tribes of Israel; Germanic tribes; Celtic tribes

Quick test

Two questions on this entry. Nothing is scored.

Question 1 · Quick check

The indigenous blank lived in the forest and hunted animals for food to survive.

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

Nearby

Origin

noun

PIE word *tréyes From Middle English tribe, tribu, from Old French tribu, from Latin tribus. Doublet of tribus.