autochthon

American  

[aw-tok-thuhn] / ɔˈtɒk θən /

noun

autochthons, plural autochthones plural

1. an aboriginal inhabitant.

2. Ecology. one of the indigenous animals or plants of a region.

3. Geology. a geological formation formed in the region where found.

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autochthon British  

/ -θɒn, ɔːˈtɒkθən /

noun

1. (often plural) one of the earliest known inhabitants of any country; aboriginal

2. an animal or plant that is native to a particular region

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Other Word Forms

Noun Inflected Forms

• autochthones
  plural
• autochthons
  plural

Etymology

Origin of autochthon

First recorded in 1640–50; from Greek autóchthōn “of the land itself,” equivalent to auto- auto- ¹ + chthṓn “the earth, land, ground”

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

autochthon autochthones autochthons

He is earth-born, autochthon, and holds possession by descent.

From The Eulogy of Richard Jefferies by Besant, Walter, Sir

That the Mayas were a race autochthon on this western continent and did not receive their civilization from Asia or Africa, seems a rational conclusion, to be deduced from the foregoing FACTS.

From Vestiges of the Mayas or, Facts Tending to Prove that Communications and Intimate Relations Must Have Existed, in very Remote Times, Between the Inhabitants of Mayab and Those of Asia and Africa by Le Plongeon, Augustus

Tchekoff is a true product of Russian literature, an autochthon plant, nourished by his natal sap.

From Contemporary Russian Novelists by Persky, Serge

Had she been familiar with the Greek idea, she might have called him a Kentucky autochthon.

From The Reign of Law; a tale of the Kentucky hemp fields by Allen, James Lane

As a Jew he saw and judged the Danish character, and as a Dane he saw and judged the Jewish character with a liberality and insight of which no autochthon would have been capable.

From Essays on Scandinavian Literature by Boyesen, Hjalmar Hjorth

But now that there is evidence to indicate that the Terran Colony was an experiment, the planting of one Hainish Normal group on a world with its own proto-hominid autochthones, the possibility cannot be ignored.

From "The Left Hand of Darkness" by Ursula K. Le Guin

The Iliad represents no creed nor opinion, and we read it with a rare sense of freedom and irresponsibility, as if we trod on native ground, and were autochthones of the soil.

From A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers by Thoreau, Henry David

The twenty May-poles which Cato proposed to plant in the hall stood already incarnate there as autochthones.

From Hesperus or Forty-Five Dog-Post-Days Vol. II A Biography by Jean Paul

In his sources of information Tacitus found nothing to hinder him from assuming as probable the view he expresses—that the Teutons were aborigines, autochthones, fostered on the soil which was their fatherland.

From Teutonic Mythology, Vol. 1 of 3 Gods and Goddesses of the Northland by Ph.D.

When occupied of a mellow October afternoon by a party of the autochthones, in their pea-jackets of blue or hickory homespun, it presents a gay and cheery spectacle.

From Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science Volume 15, No. 85, January, 1875 by Various

In a foregoing chapter I stated that the Japanese, whatever ethnological interpretation be given to them, can hardly be considered as autochthons.

From An Introduction to the History of Japan by Hara, Katsuro

Lost to the familiar, Age moved us out of living memory, unlike those tribes, the autochthons who saw the earths infancy still.

From Unmanned by Oliver, Stephen

But very little indeed is known about these supposed autochthons, except that they were very small in stature, and that this pigmy race receded and vanished before the advancing Ainu.

From An Introduction to the History of Japan by Hara, Katsuro