# indigenous

Pronunciation: US/AUS say "in-DIJ-uh-nuhs" /ɪnˈdɪd͡ʒənəs/; UK say "in-DIJ-i-nuhs" /ɪnˈdɪdʒɪnəs/

## Adjective

1. Relating to a people, language, or culture that lived in a region before other, later-dominant cultures arrived through colonization, and that maintains a distinct identity.
   - Simple: Belonging to a group of people who lived in a land long before settlers arrived and still keep their own culture.
   - _The treaty was meant to protect indigenous land from further encroachment._
   - _Scholars are working to revive indigenous languages that colonization nearly erased._
2. Originating in or native to a particular land or region, especially before the arrival of outsiders.
   - Simple: Growing or living naturally in a place from the earliest times, before other people arrived.
   - _Researchers catalogued the birds indigenous to the remote island chain._
   - _The tomato, now common in Italian cooking, is actually indigenous to the Americas._

## Other meanings

- (adjective) Present in a person or thing naturally from birth, rather than learned or acquired later.

## Origin

Borrowed from Late Latin indigenus ("native, born in a country"), formed from indi-, an old derivative of in ("in"), plus gen-, the root of gignō ("give birth to"), with the English ending -ous. It is unrelated to the word Indian.

Source: DictionaryAI, https://dictionaryai.com/define/indigenous (written from Wiktionary data, CC BY-SA 4.0: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/).