Meanings
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1
noun
a member of the Germanic-speaking peoples who settled in England from the fifth century and whose kingdoms preceded Norman rule
The burial ground contained objects made by an Anglo-Saxon in the seventh century.
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2
adj
relating to the Anglo-Saxons, their culture, or the period of English history before the Norman Conquest
The manuscript preserves an Anglo-Saxon poem about exile.
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3
noun
the Old English language
The scholar compared the Anglo-Saxon text with its modern English translation.
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4
noun
dated or imprecise: a person of English or broadly northern European ancestry
Modern historians avoid using Anglo-Saxon as a vague racial category.
Thesaurus
Etymology
From Medieval Latin Angli Saxones, 'English Saxons,' combining the names of the Angles and Saxons and distinguishing them from continental Saxons. Historical use concerns early medieval England; later racial uses are often vague, dated, or ideologically loaded.