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Aryan definition

Ary·an (ar′ē ən, er′-)

adjective

  1. Obsolete designating or of the Indo-European language family
  2. Obsolete Indo-Iranian
  3. of the Aryans

Etymology: < Sans āzya-, noble (used as tribal name to distinguish from indigenous races) > Avestan airya-nam, Iran; ? akin to Gr aristos, best or Hittite arawa-, free

noun

  1. Obsolete the hypothetical parent language of the Indo-European family
  2. a person belonging to, or supposed to be a descendant of, the prehistoric peoples that spoke this language: Aryan has no validity as an ethnological term, but it has been so used, notoriously by the Nazis, to mean“a Caucasoid of non-Jewish descent,” “a person of Nordic descent,” etc.

Webster's New World College Dictionary Copyright © 2009 by Wiley Publishing, Inc., Cleveland, Ohio.
Used by arrangement with John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

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