INDIGENOUS

Pronunciation (US):

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IPA (US):

 Dictionary entry overview: What does indigenous mean? 

• INDIGENOUS (adjective)
  The adjective INDIGENOUS has 1 sense:

1. originating where it is found

  Familiarity information: INDIGENOUS used as an adjective is very rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• INDIGENOUS (adjective)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Originating where it is found

Synonyms:

autochthonal; autochthonic; autochthonous; endemic; indigenous

Context example:

the Ainu are indigenous to the northernmost islands of Japan

Similar:

native (characteristic of or existing by virtue of geographic origin)

Derivation:

indigenousness (nativeness by virtue of originating or occurring naturally (as in a particular place))

 Context examples 

There have been precious few sightings since, but indigenous wildlife rangers say they have photographed one of the nocturnal, ground-dwelling birds in the Kimberley region of Western Australia.

(Aboriginal Rangers Find Evidence of One of Australia’s Rarest Birds, VOA)

They say that ivory from western linage walruses must have been supplied by the Norse Greenlanders – by hunting and perhaps also by trade with the indigenous peoples of Arctic North America.

(Lost Norse of Greenland fuelled the medieval ivory trade, ancient walrus DNA suggests, University of Cambridge)

C. violaceum is found ubiquitously in nature as a saprophyte in soil and water indigenous to tropical regions and is a rare pathogen in humans.

(Chromobacterium violaceum, NCI Thesaurus)

There is a character, a little indigenous boy, who represents the Amazonian culture.

(Brazilian professor creates mobile game that combines fun with mathematics, Agência Brasil)

Denotes a person having origins in one of the indigenous people of the Caribbean.

(Caribbean Indian, NCI Thesaurus)

A collective term used to identify indigenous peoples of northern Iraq and neighboring areas of Syria and Turkey, who also identify themselves as Aramaeans and Chaldeans.

(Assyrian, NCI Thesaurus)

Denotes any of the indigenous Chamorro people of Guam and the Mariana Islands or persons of that ancestry.

(Chamorran, NCI Thesaurus)

Denotes a person having origins in one of the indigenous peoples of North America, who lived on the continent prior to the European colonization.

(American Indian, NCI Thesaurus)

Worse still, many of those 3 billion people are in the most vulnerable situations: those with disabilities, the elderly, women and girls, displaced people, indigenous populations and those living in the hardest-to-reach rural areas.

(Slightly dirty water ‘still ok’ against coronavirus, SciDev.Net)

Measles is one of several diseases that drastically reduced the indigenous population of Pacific island nations and the Americas after first contact with Europeans.

(Samoan government temporarily shuts down for nationwide measles vaccination drive, Wikinews)