Mayan
Americanadjective
noun
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a member of the Mayan tribe.
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a group of languages spoken by the Mayas in southern Mexico, Guatemala, and Belize, including Yucatec, Quiché, and Huastec.
adjective
noun
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a family of Central American Indian languages, including Maya, possibly a member of the Penutian phylum
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another name for a Maya 2
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Etymology
Origin of Mayan
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:
Once-common literary references to Shakespeare or Dickens have now become as obscure in the common culture as so many Mayan inscriptions.
From Salon ● Apr. 19, 2026
Lacking clear written or archaeological evidence, however, we are left to speculate as to why the Mayan story ended as it did.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Mar. 20, 2026
Plan Kukulkan, named after the serpent deity of the Mayan civilization, covers the host cities as well as nearby tourist destinations.
From Barron's ● Mar. 6, 2026
A gifted linguist, she soon mastered Mayan dialects.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jan. 25, 2026
Perhaps science was stillborn in Indian, Mayan and Aztec civilizations for the same reason it declined in Ionia, the pervasiveness of the slave economy.
From "Cosmos" by Carl Sagan
Chocolate itself first began as Xocolatl, or “bitter water,” a spiced drink made from ground cacao beans, chiles and spices that originated with the Aztecs and Mayans.
From Salon ● Feb. 17, 2025
Professor Elizabeth Graham from University College London, who was not involved in the research, says it supports claims that Mayans lived in complex cities or towns, not in isolated villages.
From BBC ● Oct. 28, 2024
A whole network of Konstanz researchers dedicated themselves to unravelling the mystery, including Bernhard Schink, Nicolai Müller, David Schleheck, Jennifer Fleming and Olga Mayans.
From Science Daily ● Nov. 10, 2023
“Hansen’s proposal at least takes into account the Mayans and their needs. It would be absurd not to support it.”
From Los Angeles Times ● May 1, 2023
Like the Babylonians, the Mayans had a place-value system of digits and places.
From "Zero: The Biography of a Dangerous Idea" by Charles Seife
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.
