Berber

American  

[bur-ber] / ˈbɜr bər /

noun

• Berbers
  plural

1. a member of a group of North African tribes living in Barbary and the Sahara.

2. a subfamily of Afro-Asiatic, consisting of the languages of the Berbers, including Tuareg and Kabyle.

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adjective

1. of or relating to the Berbers or their language.

Berber British  

/ ˈbɜːbə /

noun

1. a member of a Caucasoid Muslim people of N Africa

2. the language of this people, forming a subfamily of the Afro-Asiatic family of languages. There are extensive differences between dialects

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adjective

1. of or relating to this people or their language

Other Word Forms

Noun Inflected Forms

• Berbers
  plural

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Etymology

Origin of Berber

1835–45; < Arabic barbar < Greek bárbaros; see barbarous

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Example Sentences

See Examples For:

Berber Berbers

And then there is my colleague Berber Jin’s report that OpenAI has missed its own revenue targets.

From The Wall Street Journal ● May 3, 2026

According to Berber, Natixis’s chief economist, commodity-producing countries with improving market fundamentals, such as Brazil and Mexico, are most likely to weather the war-related volatility well.

From Barron's ● Mar. 9, 2026

Berber Jin covers startups and venture capital out of the Wall Street Journal's San Francisco office.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jan. 29, 2026

Thought to be of Berber origin, Pope Victor I was in charge of the Catholic Church at a time when Christians were sometimes being persecuted by Roman officials for refusing to worship Roman gods.

From BBC ● Apr. 28, 2025

They were stopped at the gates by gargantuan Berber guards with scimitars and chased away.

From "Catch-22" by Joseph Heller

Morocco has a substantial population of Berbers, or Amazigh as they prefer to be called - some estimates put it at nearly 40% of the country's population of more than 34 million.

From BBC ● Dec. 20, 2022

Interior Minister Kamel Beldjoud traveled to Kabyle, home of Berbers, to assess the situation.

From Seattle Times ● Aug. 10, 2021

Ms. Elkayam said she wept the first time she heard the aching, mesmerizing voices of those long-ago Amazighs — often called Berbers, a term some consider derogatory.

From New York Times ● Mar. 26, 2021

The Berbers were hardy, warlike tribesmen living in rugged mountainous regions across North Africa.

From Textbooks ● Jan. 1, 2020

The country to the south of Cordova was the first to submit; then Seville opened her gates; the Berbers of the west were reduced to obedience; and the prince of Algarve hastened to offer tribute.

From The Moors in Spain by Stanley Lane-Poole

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