Bedouin
Americannoun
-
an Arab of the desert, in Asia or Africa; nomadic Arab.
-
a nomad; wanderer.
adjective
noun
-
a member of any of the nomadic tribes of Arabs inhabiting the deserts of Arabia, Jordan, and Syria, as well as parts of the Sahara
-
a wanderer or rover
adjective
-
of or relating to the Bedouins
-
wandering or roving
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Etymology
Origin of Bedouin
First recorded in 1350–1400; Middle English Bedoynes (plural), from Old French beduyn (singular), from Arabic badawīn “desert-dwellers,” plural of badawī, equivalent to badw “desert” + -ī a suffix indicating relationship or origin; in the Western languages, the Arabic plural form -īn was interpreted to be part of the basic form
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
His Bedouin ancestors earned great wealth pearl diving—until foreign farmed pearls tanked the market and left the local economy in shambles.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 19, 2026
Last summer, she tried to bring aid into a southern city populated mostly by Druze after it was torn by deadly violence between Druze, Bedouin and Syrian government forces.
From BBC ● Feb. 1, 2026
Furthermore, "it will displace more than 24 Palestinian Bedouin communities, all of which rely on livestock", he added, and therefore land for grazing.
From Barron's ● Nov. 25, 2025
This year, low rainfall led to slim pickings in the West Bank, including for the tree whose many nicknames include the Elder, the Bedouin Tree and Mother of Olives.
From Barron's ● Nov. 7, 2025
He says he comes from the order of the White Fathers, missionaries to the nomadic Bedouin tribes and chaplains to the French Foreign Legion.
From "Angela's Ashes: A Memoir" by Frank McCourt
Years ago, nomadic communities or Bedouins wore the traditional Arab headdress in historic Palestine, NPR reported.
From Salon ● May 1, 2024
There are roughly 300,000 Arab Bedouins in the Negev desert.
From New York Times ● Apr. 14, 2024
"There are societies like Bedouins", she told the court.
From BBC ● Mar. 13, 2024
In recent weeks, though, as the Israeli government has aimed to portray a unified front, officials have also made public gestures toward the Bedouins.
From Los Angeles Times ● Dec. 5, 2023
Now I was drinking sugary tea with Zalabia Bedouins and squatting on a sand drift in Wadi Rum, the Valley of the Moon, less than twenty miles from the Saudi Arabian border.
From "Educated" by Tara Westover
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
