INDO-EUROPEAN

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

IPA (US):

 Dictionary entry overview: What does Indo-European mean? 

• INDO-EUROPEAN (noun)
  The noun INDO-EUROPEAN has 2 senses:

1. a member of the prehistoric people who spoke Proto-Indo European

2. the family of languages that by 1000 BC were spoken throughout Europe and in parts of southwestern and southern Asia

  Familiarity information: INDO-EUROPEAN used as a noun is rare.

• INDO-EUROPEAN (adjective)
  The adjective INDO-EUROPEAN has 2 senses:

1. of or relating to the Indo-European language family

2. of or relating to the former Indo-European people

  Familiarity information: INDO-EUROPEAN used as an adjective is rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• INDO-EUROPEAN (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

A member of the prehistoric people who spoke Proto-Indo European

Classified under:

Nouns denoting people

Synonyms:

Aryan; Indo-European

Hypernyms ("Indo-European" is a kind of...):

primitive; primitive person (a person who belongs to an early stage of civilization)

Sense 2

Meaning:

The family of languages that by 1000 BC were spoken throughout Europe and in parts of southwestern and southern Asia

Classified under:

Nouns denoting communicative processes and contents

Synonyms:

Indo-European; Indo-European language; Indo-Hittite

Hypernyms ("Indo-European" is a kind of...):

natural language; tongue (a human written or spoken language used by a community; opposed to e.g. a computer language)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "Indo-European"):

PIE; Proto-Indo European (a prehistoric unrecorded language that was the ancestor of all Indo-European languages)

Albanian (the Indo-European language spoken by the people of Albania)

Armenian; Armenian language (the Indo-European language spoken predominantly in Armenia, but also in Azerbaijan)

Illyrian (a minor and almost extinct branch of the Indo-European languages; spoken along the Dalmatian coast)

Thraco-Phrygian (an extinct branch of the Indo-European language family thought by some to be related to Armenian)

Balto-Slavic; Balto-Slavic language; Balto-Slavonic (a family of Indo-European languages including the Slavic and Baltic languages)

Germanic; Germanic language (a branch of the Indo-European family of languages; members that are spoken currently fall into two major groups: Scandinavian and West Germanic)

Celtic; Celtic language (a branch of the Indo-European languages that (judging from inscriptions and place names) was spread widely over Europe in the pre-Christian era)

Italic; Italic language (a branch of the Indo-European languages of which Latin is the chief representative)

Tocharian (a branch of the Indo-European language family that originated in central Asia during the first millennium A.D.)

Indo-Iranian; Indo-Iranian language (the branch of the Indo-European family of languages including the Indic and Iranian language groups)

Anatolian; Anatolian language (an extinct branch of the Indo-European family of languages known from inscriptions and important in the reconstruction of Proto-Indo European)

Greek; Hellenic; Hellenic language (the Hellenic branch of the Indo-European family of languages)

• INDO-EUROPEAN (adjective)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Of or relating to the Indo-European language family

Classified under:

Relational adjectives (pertainyms)

Synonyms:

Indo-European; Indo-Germanic

Pertainym:

Indo-European (the family of languages that by 1000 BC were spoken throughout Europe and in parts of southwestern and southern Asia)

Sense 2

Meaning:

Of or relating to the former Indo-European people

Classified under:

Relational adjectives (pertainyms)

Synonyms:

Aryan; Indo-Aryan; Indo-European

Context example:

Indo-European migrations

Pertainym:

Indo-European (a member of the prehistoric people who spoke Proto-Indo European)

 Context examples 

An Indo-European language belonging to the North Germanic (Scandinavian) branch; the official language of Iceland.

(Icelandic Language, NCI Thesaurus)

An Indo-European language belonging to the West Germanic branch; the official language of Britain and the United States, and most of the Commonwealth countries.

(English Language, NCI Thesaurus)