native
Forms
- Comparative
- more native
- Superlative
- most native
- Plural
- natives
Definitions
1.Belonging to one by birth.
- English is not my native language.
- They were dressed in their native costumes.
- Their habits, as we can see them transacted, are native.
2.Characteristic of or relating to people inhabiting a region from prehistoric times.
- Native peoples in the continental United States are called Native Americans or American Indians.
- Many native artists studied abroad.
3.Born or grown in the region in which it lives or is found; not foreign or imported.
- Clover is not native to the Americas, but it is firmly established there.
4.Alternative letter-case form of Native (of or relating to the native inhabitants of the Americas, or of Australia).
1.A person who is native to a place; a person who was born in a place.
2.A person of aboriginal descent, as distinguished from a person who was or whose ancestors were foreigners or settlers/colonizers. Alternative letter-case form of Native (aboriginal inhabitant of the Americas or Australia).
- Mail trains are limited to first and second class passengers, but on the mixed trains third class is also provided, and this is patronised exclusively by natives.
- As for the wars between natives and settlers, far from having “ceased,” they would continue well into the twentieth century, and over much the same things that had always sparked them, trade, land, and settler arrogance.
3.A native speaker.
4.A native plant or animal.
Frequency
Overall
Common· #1734
By learning goal
- Everyday conversation
- Rare
- General reading & writing
- Common
- Academic
- Uncommon
- Literature
- Rare
Related words
Etymology
Inherited from Middle English natif, from Old French natif, from Latin nātīvus, from nātus (“birth”). Doublet of naive and neif. Displaced native Middle English thedisch, equivalent to (puristic) theed + -ish. By surface analysis, Latin nat- + -ive.
Compare also inborn.