Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- noun Indo-Iranian.
- noun A member of the people who spoke the parent language of the Indo-European languages. No longer in technical use.
- noun A member of any people speaking an Indo-European language. No longer in technical use.
- noun In Nazism and neo-Nazism, a non-Jewish Caucasian, especially one of Nordic type, supposed to be part of a master race.
from The Century Dictionary.
- Of or pertaining to the Aryans or to their speech. See II.
- noun A member of the eastern or Asiatic division of the Indo-European family, occupying the territories between Mesopotamia and the Bay of Bengal, in the two subdivisions of Persia, or Iran, and India.
- noun An Indo-European or Indo-German or Japhetite; a member of that section of the human race which includes the Hindus and Iranians (Persians) as its eastern or Asiatic division, and the Greeks, Italians, Celts, Slavonians, and Germans or Teutons as its western or European division.
- noun Many words still live in India and England that have witnessed the first separation of the northern and southern Aryans, and these are witnesses not to be shaken by any cross-examination. The terms for God, for house, for father, mother, son, daughter, for dog and cow, for heart and tears, for axe and tree, identical in all the Indo-European idioms, are like the watchwords of soldiers. We challenge the seeming stranger; and whether he answer with the lips of a Greek, a German, or an Indian, we recognize him as one of ourselves. There was a time when the ancestors of the Celts, the Germans, the Slavonians, the Greeks and Italians, the Persians and Hindus, were living together beneath the same roof, separate from the ancestors of the Semitic and Turanian races.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- adjective Of or pertaining to the people called Aryans; Indo-European; Indo-Germanic.
- noun One of a primitive people supposed to have lived in prehistoric times, in Central Asia, east of the Caspian Sea, and north of the Hindu Kush and Paropamisan Mountains, and to have been the stock from which sprang the Hindu, Persian, Greek, Latin, Celtic, Teutonic, Slavonic, and other races; one of that ethnological division of mankind called also Indo-European or Indo-Germanic.
- noun The language of the original Aryans.
- noun (Nazism) a non-Jewish caucasian of Nordic stock; -- a classification used by Nazis, having no anthropological basis.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- noun theosophy, Germanic mysticism, nazism A member of an (alleged)
master race comprised of non-Jewish Caucasians , especially those ofNordic orGermanic descent . - noun informal A person of
Caucasian ethnicity ; awhite non-Jew. - noun informal, euphemistic A
Caucasian racist , often one who is an Aryan in the first sense. - noun dated An
Indo-European , aProto-Indo-European . - noun dated An
Indo-Iranian . - noun ethnography, obsolete A subdivision of the
Caucasian race , which comprised the Aryans, theSemites , and theHamites , or the accompanyinglinguistic subdivision. - adjective Pertaining, in
racial theories , to the (alleged) Aryanmaster race . - adjective neo-Nazi or white supremacist ideology, informal Pertaining to the
Caucasian ethnicity . - adjective US, informal, euphemistic Pertaining to
Caucasian racists or their organisations, theories, etc. - adjective Of or pertaining to
Indo-Iranian peoples ,cultures , andlanguages . - adjective dated Of or pertaining to
Indo-European peoples ,cultures andlanguages .
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- noun (according to Nazi doctrine) a Caucasian person of Nordic descent (and not a Jew)
- adjective of or relating to the former Indo-European people
- noun a member of the prehistoric people who spoke Proto-Indo European
Etymologies
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
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Examples
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The later ethnological misuse of ARYAN to signify not spiritual, but physical, characteristics, led the great Orientalist, Max Muller, to say quaintly: “To me an ethnologist who speaks of an Aryan race, Aryan blood, Aryan eyes and hair, is as great a sinner as a linguist who speaks of a dolichocephalic dictionary or a brachycephalic grammar.”
Autobiography of a Yogi Yogananda, Paramhansa, 1893-1952 1935
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The later ethnological misuse of ARYAN to signify not spiritual, but physical, characteristics, led the great Orientalist, Max Muller, to say quaintly: "To me an ethnologist who speaks of an Aryan race, Aryan blood, Aryan eyes and hair, is as great a sinner as a linguist who speaks of a dolichocephalic dictionary or a brachycephalic grammar."
Autobiography of a Yogi Paramahansa Yogananda 1922
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The term Aryan is usually associated with white supremacist groups, said Military Religious Freedom Foundation attorney
NYDN Rss NINA MANDELL 2012
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A large skull with deep-set eye sockets that appeared to stare at one had the title Aryan (Germanic) written beneath its pronounced jawbone.
Soul Learner_Tobsha 2006
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That this region was a sort of alembic, a melting-pot (as America is today) for various peoples of an ancient world-wide culture, as broad at least in its scope as the term Aryan is today.
Commentary Upon the Maya-Tzental Perez Codex with a Concluding Note Upon the Linguistic Problem of the Maya Glyphs William Gates 1901
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Historical reasons, chiefly in connexion with Sanskrit, are brings the term Aryan (or Aryas) into fashion.
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Since ancient times, Persians have used the term Aryan as a racial designation in an ethnic sense to describe their lineage and their language, and this tradition has continued into the present day amongst modern Iranians.
Pharyngula 2008
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"Aryan is a Sanskrit word that means noble," he said, "no matter what spin the liberal media tries to put on it as being a racist, hate word."
Racing or racist: Does Facebook reveal Va. driver's true colors? 2010
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The Nazis were afraid burning it would damage what they called Aryan houses next door.
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These languages, again, form a compact family, and differ entirely from the other family, which we called Aryan or Indo-European.
Chips From A German Workshop - Volume I Essays on the Science of Religion 1861
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