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stirps

[sturps]
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noun, plural stir·pes [stur-peez] /ˈstɜr piz/.
  1. a stock; family or branch of a family; line of descent.
  2. Law. a person from whom a family is descended.
  3. Biology Now Rare. a family, superfamily, or permanent variety.
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Origin of stirps

1675–85; < Latin: rootstock, trunk

stirp

[sturp]
noun Anthropology.
  1. a line of descendants from a common ancestor.
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Origin of stirp

1495–1505; < Latin stirp-, stem of stirps stirps
Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2018

Related Words

origin, clan, pedigree, genealogy, descent, lineage, ancestry, genetics, tribe, progeny, family, house, kin, breed, kindred, extraction, heredity, race, blood, birth

Examples from the Web for stirps

Historical Examples

  • Some took the additional name from the stirps instead of from the gns, that is, from the cognmen instead of from the nmen.

    The Private Life of the Romans

    Harold Whetstone Johnston

  • The principal characters of the story, belonging to the stirps Muciana, are purely imaginary.

  • Among the Iroquois descent was never reckoned through the male line, the stirps being always a woman.

British Dictionary definitions for stirps

stirps

noun plural stirpes (ˈstɜːpiːz)
  1. genealogy a line of descendants from an ancestor; stock or strain
  2. botany a race or variety, esp one in which the characters are maintained by cultivation
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Word Origin

C17: from Latin: root, family origin
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