| The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language: Fourth Edition. 2000. |
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| tribe |
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| PRONUNCIATION: |  tr b |
| NOUN: | 1. A unit of sociopolitical organization consisting of a number of families, clans, or other groups who share a common ancestry and culture and among whom leadership is typically neither formalized nor permanent. 2. A political, ethnic, or ancestral division of ancient states and cultures, especially: a. Any of the three divisions of the ancient Romans, namely, the Latin, Sabine, and Etruscan. b. Any of the 12 divisions of ancient Israel. c. A phyle of ancient Greece. 3. A group of people sharing an occupation, interest, or habit: a tribe of graduate students. 4. Informal A large family. 5. Biology A taxonomic category placed between a subfamily and a genus or between a suborder and a family and usually containing several genera. | | ETYMOLOGY: | Middle English, from Old French tribu, from Latin tribus, division of the Roman people, perhaps of Etruscan origin or possibly from tri-, three; see trei- in Appendix I.
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| The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition. Copyright © 2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Published by the Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved. |
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