deme

American  

[deem] / dim /

noun

1. one of the administrative divisions of ancient Attica and of modern Greece.

2. Biology. a local population of organisms of the same kind, especially one in which the genetic mix is similar throughout the group.

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deme British  

/ diːm /

noun

1. 1. (in preclassical Greece) the territory inhabited by a tribe

   2. (in ancient Attica) a geographical unit of local government

2. biology a group of individuals within a species that possess particular characteristics of cytology, genetics, etc

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deme Scientific  

/ dēm /

1. A small, locally interbreeding group of organisms within a larger population. Demes are isolated reproductively from other members of their species, although the isolation may only be partial and is not necessarily permanent. Because they share a somewhat restricted gene pool, members of a deme generally differ morphologically to some degree from members of other demes.

2. See also population

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Other Word Forms

• demic adjective

Etymology

Origin of deme

First recorded in 1620–30, deme is from the Greek word dêmos a district, the people, commons

Example Sentences

When Feldstein left aca deme for Washington in the summer of 1982, he entered a foreign world.

From Time Magazine Archive

They mighte deme thing they never er thoughte!

From Troilus and Criseyde by Chaucer, Geoffrey

The inscription runs: Ἰάσων ὁ καὶ Δέκμος Ἀχαρνεὺς ἰατρός, κ.τ.λ., and contains the names of 'Jason, called also Decimus, of the Acharnian deme, a physician,' and of other members of his family.

From A Catalogue of Sculpture in the Department of Greek and Roman Antiquities, British Museum, Volume I (of 2) by Smith, A. H.

Strepsiades, the son of Phido, of the deme of Cicynna.

From The Eleven Comedies, Volume 1 by Aristophanes

There are, of course, little valleys, and two or three villages, one of them the old deme Brauron, which they now pronounce Vravron.

From Rambles and Studies in Greece by Mahaffy, J. P.