Phoenician
Americannoun
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Phoenicians
plural
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a native or inhabitant of Phoenicia.
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the extinct Semitic language of the Phoenicians.
adjective
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of or relating to Phoenicia, its people, or their language.
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noting or pertaining to the script used for the writing of Phoenician from the 11th century b.c. or earlier and from which were derived the Greek, Roman, and all other Western alphabets.
noun
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a member of an ancient Semitic people of NW Syria who dominated the trade of the ancient world in the first millennium bc and founded colonies throughout the Mediterranean
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the extinct language of this people, belonging to the Canaanitic branch of the Semitic subfamily of the Afro-Asiatic family
adjective
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
Etymology
Origin of Phoenician
Middle English word dating back to 1350–1400; see origin at Phoenicia, -an
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:
On another nearby property overlooking an ancient sea wall, excavations revealed two stone quarries "one Roman and the other Phoenician", she said.
From Barron's ● Aug. 29, 2026
The ruins of rooms from Phoenician, Persian and Roman periods have been uncovered, their pink or grey flooring helping to distinguish them.
From Barron's ● Aug. 29, 2026
What the viewers of Titian’s time would have known is that the painting depicts the mythical moment in which the Phoenician and Cretan civilizations began to conjoin.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 21, 2026
May’s “The Phoenician Scheme” marked their seventh collaboration.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 1, 2025
Ahmad taught him how to spear a fish, how to row a boat alone, how to dive from the great Phoenician stones on the islands southern wall.
From "Zeitoun" by Dave Eggers
In antiquity, the Phoenicians brought techniques for making a light-bodied wine to Marseilles.
From Salon ● Jul. 15, 2024
Cline suggests there are lessons in the resilience of the Phoenicians about having decentralized and redundant systems and being innovative and self-sufficient—qualities that could help societies endure systemic shocks today.
From Slate ● Apr. 28, 2024
Scholars believe the area was first settled by the Phoenicians and emerged as a key Roman empire outpost from the second to fifth century.
From Seattle Times ● Nov. 3, 2023
The experience of Jack and his fellow Phoenicians is increasingly common.
From New York Times ● Jul. 13, 2023
Enthusiasts proposed a dozen groups as the ancestral stock: Phoenicians, Basques, Chinese, Scythians, Romans, Africans, “Hindoos,” ancient Greeks, ancient Assyrians, ancient Egyptians, the inhabitants of Atlantis, even straying bands of Welsh.
From "1491" by Charles C. Mann
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.
