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Indian
/ˈɪndiən/Of India; also referring to Native Americans
From Sanskrit, through Old Persian, Greek, and Latin india (The land or region associated with the Indus River).
from Late Latin indianus
from Late Latin indianus
from Late Latin indianus
from Late Latin indianus
Word Ancestry
from Late Latin indianus
from Late Latin indianus
from Late Latin indianus
from Late Latin indianus
A river is hiding inside this nationality word. Sanskrit sindhu meant simply “river,” but Persian speakers used it for the Indus and the land around it; Greek and Latin travelers then carried the name westward as India. The same route produced Hindu, originally a Persian geographical label, and indigo—the “Indian” blue dye that eventually became one of Isaac Newton’s seven spectrum colors in 1704. Then came the spectacular geographical blunder: from at least 1553, English speakers used Indian for Indigenous Americans because Columbus and his successors thought they had reached Asia. So one word can point both to the banks of the Indus and, through a sixteenth-century mistake, to people thousands of miles away; geography made the error, and English preserved it.
The Story
A river is hiding inside this nationality word. Sanskrit sindhu meant simply “river,” but Persian speakers used it for the Indus and the land around it; Greek and Latin travelers then carried the name westward as India. The same route produced Hindu, originally a Persian geographical label, and indigo—the “Indian” blue dye that eventually became one of Isaac Newton’s seven spectrum colors in 1704. Then came the spectacular geographical blunder: from at least 1553, English speakers used Indian for Indigenous Americans because Columbus and his successors thought they had reached Asia. So one word can point both to the banks of the Indus and, through a sixteenth-century mistake, to people thousands of miles away; geography made the error, and English preserved it.
Kin & Kindred
From 'india'·The land or region associated with the Indus River
Derived Terms
English words from this root
From '-an'·Of, belonging to, or relating to
Derived Terms
English words from this root