gens
Americannoun
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gentes
plural
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a group of families in ancient Rome claiming descent from a common ancestor and united by a common name and common ancestral religious rites.
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Anthropology. a group tracing common descent in the male line; clan.
noun
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(in ancient Rome) any of a group of aristocratic families, having a common name and claiming descent from a common ancestor in the male line
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anthropol a group based on descent in the male line
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Etymology
Origin of gens
First recorded in 1840–50, gens is from the Latin word gēns race, people. See genus, gender 1, gender 2
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:
The conflict between Whites and gens de couleur libres exploded in 1791, after Haiti’s White population refused to acknowledge the citizenship rights that France had extended to wealthy people of color.
From Textbooks ● Dec. 14, 2022
The gens de couleur libres, on the other hand, interpreted the revolutionary rhetoric of liberty to mean the extension of equal rights to all free people regardless of race.
From Textbooks ● Dec. 14, 2022
Project Starscape has launched two batches - popularly called "gens" - of VTubers so far.
From BBC ● Oct. 19, 2022
Charles Eastwood, a locksmith in Phoenix, subpoenaed Acxiom, a data brokerage firm, as part of a lawsuit he filed against a group of purported lead gens in 2010.
From New York Times ● Jan. 30, 2016
Grandfather stands in his box, backed by the rest of the family, reminding everyone here that one of the Empire's most powerful gens has seen a son graduate today.
From "An Ember in the Ashes" by Sabaa Tahir
The existence of special religious celebrations among Indian gentes can hardly be demonstrated.
From The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State by Friedrich Engels
This peculiarly complicated order of things is still more entangled by the inoculation—evidently at a later stage—with maternal law gentes.
From The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State by Friedrich Engels
And while thus the "gens" was strictly exogamous, the tribe comprising an aggregate of "gentes" was equally endogamous.
From The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State by Friedrich Engels
According to the tradition among the Senecas, the bear and the deer were the two original gentes, from which the others were formed by segmentation.
From The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State by Friedrich Engels
Though they chronicled many of its distinguishing marks correctly, still they always regarded it as a group of families and thus prevented their understanding the nature and origin of gentes.
From The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State by Friedrich Engels
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.
