Sumerian
Americanadjective
noun
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a native or inhabitant of Sumer.
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a language of unknown affinities that was the language of the Sumerians and had, in the late 4th and 3rd millenniums b.c., a well-developed literature that is preserved in pictographic and cuneiform writing and represents the world's oldest extant written documents.
noun
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a member of a people who established a civilization in Sumer during the 4th millennium bc
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the extinct language of this people, of no known relationship to any other language
adjective
Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of Sumerian
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.
Made of 15-karat gold, this helmet is believed to have been worn by an early Sumerian ruler.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Apr. 16, 2026
The loss of tidal waters may have forced Sumerian communities to respond with large-scale irrigation and flood control systems -- innovations that defined Sumer's golden age.
From Science Daily ● Oct. 27, 2025
Theories have linked it to early Brahmi scripts, Dravidian and Indo-Aryan languages, Sumerian, and even claimed it's just made up of political or religious symbols.
From BBC ● Jan. 16, 2025
Gleick traces the history of conflicts to the first known war over water nearly 4,500 years ago between the ancient Sumerian city-states of Lagash and Umma in what is now southern Iraq.
From Los Angeles Times ● Dec. 28, 2023
We know that the development of Sumerian writing took at least hundreds, possibly thousands, of years.
From "Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies" by Jared M. Diamond
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.
