gens

American  

[jenz] / dʒɛnz /

noun

• gentes
  plural

1. a group of families in ancient Rome claiming descent from a common ancestor and united by a common name and common ancestral religious rites.

2. Anthropology. a group tracing common descent in the male line; clan.

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gens British  

/ dʒɛnz /

noun

1. (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

2. anthropol a group based on descent in the male line

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Other Word Forms

Derived Forms

• subgens
  noun

Inflected Forms

Nouns

• gentes
  plural

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

See Examples For:

gens gentes

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

Within a few days of the Bois Caïman meeting, some gens de couleur libres joined forces with rebelling enslaved people in an uprising against White colonists.

From Textbooks ● Dec. 14, 2022

Project Starscape has launched two batches - popularly called "gens" - of VTubers so far.

From BBC ● Oct. 19, 2022

To understand how lead gens game Google’s algorithm, you need to know a bit about how a company’s address winds up in Google’s results, and how those results can be fraudulently altered.

From New York Times ● Jan. 30, 2016

“You’re a traitor to your gens, girl,” Grandfather says, the only man in the Empire brave enough to refer to my mother as a girl.

From "An Ember in the Ashes" by Sabaa Tahir

On founding this league the fifty sachems had been assigned to the different tribes and gentes as holders of new offices created especially for federal purposes.

From The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State by Friedrich Engels

But once the gens was given as a social unit, we also see how the whole constitution of gentes, phratries and tribes developed with almost unavoidable necessity—because naturally—from the gens.

From The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State by Friedrich Engels

It was composed of all the sachems and chiefs of the different gentes, real representatives because they could be deposed at any moment.

From The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State by Friedrich Engels

Hence we find the gentes of the same name differently grouped in the phratries of the different tribes.

From The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State by Friedrich Engels

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