indian
adjective · noun
Simple meaning
Of or about or characteristic of India or the East Indies or their peoples or languages or cultures.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
indeeuhnSay the bold part a little louder.
IPA pronunciation (US)
ˈɪndiən
This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.
IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.
Definition
Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.
adjective
Of or relating to or characteristic of India or the East Indies or their peoples or languages or cultures
Of or relating to India or its people; or (formerly) of the East Indies.
Of or relating to the indigenous peoples of the Americas.
Alternative letter-case form of Indian ("indigenous").
noun
countable
A person from India.
countable
An American Indian, a member of one of the indigenous peoples of the Americas (generally excluding the Aleut, Inuit, Metis, and Yupik).
A kind of marble (spherical toy) with colored bands on an opaque black base.
ukcountablecolloquial
Ellipsis of Indian meal ("meal consisting of Indian cuisine").
countable
One of the black carnival revellers in New Orleans, Louisiana, who dress up for Mardi Gras in suits influenced by Native American ceremonial apparel. They are divided into tribes.
ukcountablecolloquial
Ellipsis of Indian restaurant ("restaurant serving Indian cuisine").
Word at a Glance
- Difficulty
- A1 · Beginner (estimated)
- Frequency
- Very Common
- Typical Use
- Everyday English
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
Aura for this meaning
This meaning: Of or relating to or characteristic of India or the East Indies or their peoples or languages or cultures
Used this way, indian is a reasonably familiar word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. It usually sounds natural in a wide range of settings.
- Emotional tone
- Neutral
- Formality
- Neutral
- Intensity
- Not strongly marked
- How common
- Moderately common
- Connotation
- No strong connotation
- Usage feel
- Neutral and straightforward
Nearby words
- amerind , rarer, so it draws attention
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
More ways to use indian
- “The Indian subcontinent.”adjective
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Common Patterns and Combinations
How this word naturally appears with others.
Word Family
Related forms, grouped by how they connect.
Compound terms
Established multiword terms.
East Indian tree that puts out aerial shoots that grow down into the soil forming additional trunks.
Tree of the genus Catalpa with large leaves and white flowers followed by long slender pods.
Evergreen Asiatic tree having glossy pinnate leaves and racemose creamy-white scented flowers.
Stout perennial of eastern and central North America having palmate leaves and showy racemose blue flowers.
East Indian tree having a useful dark purple wood.
Annual of central United States having showy long-stalked yellow flower heads marked with scarlet or purple in the center.
Related Words
Connected to the same idea, not synonyms.
More about this wordSynonyms, forms, origin
Synonyms
Sense: of or relating to or characteristic of India
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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.