tribal

Meanings

1. 1
   adj

   relating to or characteristic of a tribe

   tribal customs

2. 2
   adj

   Of or relating to tribes.

   social order through tribal law

3. 3
   adj

   Based on or organized according to tribes.

   a tribal society

4. 4
   adj

   Phylogenic.

   tribal history

5. 5
   adj

   Incorporating designs or styles typical of an indigenous people.

   tribal techno music

6. 6
   noun

   A member of a tribe.

   This right had been accepted by relative tribals but misobeyed and effaced by non-tribals and foreign peasants.

7. 7
   noun

   A design or image that has been influenced by indigenous peoples; especially such a tattoo.

Etymology

From Latin tribālis. By surface analysis, tribe + -al, first attested in the 1630s. The specific adjectival sense under the defunct theory of recapitulation derives from tribal history as an overly literal learned borrowing from German Stammesgeschichte; ordinarily, Stamm would only be translated as tribe when used in its ethnographic sense.