• indigenous •
Pronunciation: in-di-jê-nês • Hear it!
Part of Speech: Adjective
Meaning: 1. Native to a certain place or region (plant or animal), inhabiting a particular place. 2. Descendants of the original inhabitants of a region.
Notes: Despite appearances, this word has no relation to indigent. It comes with an adverb, indigenously. and a noun, indigenousness. We have a verb, too, indigenize, meaning "to adapt to an indigenous culture" or "to nationalize".
In Play: This word may refer to people: "Representative Mary Peltola is the fifth indigenous representative to serve in the US Congress." It may also refer to anything else from a particular region: "The Eaton Inn is known for its Mexican cuisine prepared with indigenous ingredients imported from Mexico." It may also refer to anything else from a particular region: "The Eaton Inn is known for its Mexican cuisine prepared with indigenous ingredients imported from Mexico."
Word History: Today's Good Word was borrowed from Latin indigenus "native", literally "in-born", containing an archaic Latin word, indu "in" + gignere "to beget, give birth to". Old Latin indu and Greek endo- "within" come from PIE endo, an extended form of en "in(to)", whence Latin, Italian, English, German in, Greek, French, Spanish en "in", Welsh yn "in, at", Irish, Swedish, Norwegian, Danish i "in", Scots Gaelic anns "in", and Hindi mein "in(to)". Gignere was based on PIE gene- "to bear, give birth to", evidence of which we see in Sanskrit janati "begets, bears", Greek genos "race, kind", Latin genus, generis "birth, origin; kind, class", English kin and kind, German Kind "kid, child", and Welsh geni "to be born". (Now let's thank Monika Freund, who found this non-indigenous lexical jewel and ensured it caught our attention.)
P.S. - Register for the Daily Good Word E-Mail! - You can get our daily Good Word sent directly to you via e-mail in either HTML or Text format. Go to our Registration Page to sign up today!
