Ethiopian

[ ee-thee-oh-pee-uhn ]

adjective
  1. of or relating to Ethiopia or to its inhabitants.

  2. belonging to the part of Africa south of the equator.

  1. Zoogeography. belonging to a geographical division comprising Africa south of the tropic of Cancer, the southern part of Arabia, and Madagascar.

  2. Archaic. Black African.

noun
  1. a native of Ethiopia.

  2. a member of any of various supposedly dark-skinned peoples regarded by the ancients as coming from a country lying south of Egypt.

  1. Archaic. a Black African.

Origin of Ethiopian

1
First recorded in 1545–55; Ethiopi(a) + -an

Other words from Ethiopian

  • an·ti-E·thi·o·pi·an, adjective, noun
  • pro-E·thi·o·pi·an, adjective, noun

Words Nearby Ethiopian

Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023

How to use Ethiopian in a sentence

British Dictionary definitions for Ethiopian

Ethiopian

/ (ˌiːθɪˈəʊpɪən) /


adjective
  1. of, relating to, or characteristic of Ethiopia, its people, or any of their languages

  2. of or denoting a zoogeographical region consisting of Africa south of the Sahara

  1. anthropol obsolete of or belonging to a postulated racial group characterized by dark skin, an oval elongated face, and thin lips, living chiefly in Africa south of the Sahara

noun
  1. a native or inhabitant of Ethiopia

  2. any of the languages of Ethiopia, esp Amharic

noun, adjective
  1. an archaic word for Black

Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012