Indo-European

[in-doh-yoor-uh-pee-uhn]

Phonetic (Standard)IPA

noun

a large, widespread family of languages, the surviving branches of which include Italic, Slavic, Baltic, Hellenic, Celtic, Germanic, and Indo-Iranian, spoken by about half the world's population: English, Spanish, German, Latin, Greek, Russian, Albanian, Lithuanian, Armenian, Persian, Hindi, and Hittite are all Indo-European languages. IE
Proto-Indo-European.
a member of any of the peoples speaking an Indo-European language.

adjective

of or belonging to Indo-European.
speaking an Indo-European language.
an Indo-European people.

Indo-European

adjective

denoting, belonging to, or relating to a family of languages that includes English and many other culturally and politically important languages of the world: a characteristic feature, esp of the older languages such as Latin, Greek, and Sanskrit, is inflection showing gender, number, and case
denoting or relating to the hypothetical parent language of this family, primitive Indo-European
denoting, belonging to, or relating to any of the peoples speaking these languages

noun

the Indo-European family of languages
Also called: primitive Indo-European.�� Proto-Indo-European.��the reconstructed hypothetical parent language of this family
a member of the prehistoric people who spoke this language
a descendant of this people or a native speaker of an Indo-European language

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Other Word Forms

non-Indo-European adjective

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Word History and Origins

Origin of Indo-European¹

First recorded in 1805–15; Indo- ( def. ) + European ( def. )

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Example Sentences

Examples have not been reviewed.

The steppe people transformed the continent over the course of 5 centuries, introducing the wheel and Indo-European languages.

From

He notes that the group’s influence across Europe continues to this day in, for example, the Indo-European languages spoken across the continent.

From

They numbered some 400,000, spoke a language of the Austroasiatic family—unlike India’s mainstream Indo-European and Dravidian languages—and lay largely outside the Hindu world.

From

These migrations may also have brought Indo-European languages to the region.

From

This word comes from an immensely old Indo-European word, nomos, which refers to a fixed area, or to pasture.

From

indoctrination Indo-Europeanist

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