Aryan — English Dictionary

Noun

1. In reference to a pseudoscientific historical race theory: A person of Caucasian (white / Northern European) ethnicity; A white non-Jew, in the broadest sense, or more narrowly defined as people of Germanic descent.

   Usage

   • Informal

   Examples

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   This short sketch of the changes that take place among those races that are only the depositories of a culture also furnishes a picture of the development and the activity and the disappearance of those who are the true founders of culture on this earth, namely the Aryans themselves.

   One transmission advantage may have been that espousing Aryan-supremacist and overtly Nazi ideology could have been a roundabout way of announcing, […]

   The point is not that southern Republicans are edging toward Aryan-supremacist views but that the rhetoric of their campaigns and some of their political […]

2. In reference to a pseudoscientific historical race theory: A Caucasian racist, often one who is an Aryan in the first sense.

   Usage

   • US usage
   • broadly
   • euphemistic
   • Informal

   Examples

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   Cal tried to think of words that would convey Wolfgang Stahl to the ears and hands of a woman who’d never seen him and never, until now, had to imagine him. […] ‘Why not . . . why not think of your chap as a type? Tell me what type you’d sort of put him into.’ ‘Sort of?’ ‘You know . . . roughly.’ ‘He’s an Aryan.’ ‘Ah, one of those, eh? Odd when you think about it. I mean. How did they arrive at blue-eyed blonds as a racial type? Hitler’s short and dark and looks like Charlie Chaplin. Goebbels is short and ugly and looks like a rat. And as for Goering – well is that what Billy Bunter grew up to be?’

3. In reference to a pseudoscientific historical race theory: An Indo-European, a Proto-Indo-European.

   Usage

   • broadly
   • Dated

   Examples

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   1905, Rossiter Johnson, LL.D., chief editor, The Great Events by Famous Historians, volume IV We have seen that when the Goths first entered Roman territory they were driven on by a vast migration of the Asiatic Huns. These wild and hideous tribes then […] appeared upon the Rhine, and in enormous numbers penetrated Gaul. No people had yet understood them, none had even checked their career. The white races seemed helpless against this "yellow peril", this "Scourge of God", as Attila was called. Goths and Romans and all the varied tribes which were ranging in perturbed whirl through unhappy Gaul laid aside their lesser enmities and met in common cause against this terrible invader. The battle of Châlons, 451, was the most tremendous struggle in which Turanian was ever matched against Aryan, the one huge bid of the stagnant, unprogressive races, for earth’s mastery.

4. In reference to a pseudoscientific historical race theory: A subdivision of the Caucasian racial and linguistic grouping, when that grouping is defined as consisting of Aryans, Semites, and Hamites.

   Usage

   • Dated

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   [The] Caucasian race includes two sub-races, — the Xantho-chroic and Melanochroic of Huxley. The seat of this race is Europe, northern Africa, and southwestern Asia, its linguistic division being into Aryans, Semites, and Hamites.

   The surest principle of classification is based on language, but the results must be tested by a study of the physical characteristics of the various races. According to this method of classification, the races of the world may be divided as follows: Aryan, Semitic, Hamitic, Turanian, Negroid. The name Caucasian is generally applied to the first three divisions, — Aryans, Semites, and Hamites. Aryan. — This includes the ancient Hindus […] the Persians, Greeks, Italians, Celts, Teutons, and Slavs.

5. Synonym of Indo-Iranian (“member of any peoples speaking an Indo-Iranian language.”)

   Usage

   • Dated
   • Historical

6. Synonym of Indo-Iranian (“member of any peoples speaking an Indo-Iranian language.”) An Indo-Aryan.

   Usage

   • broadly
   • Dated
   • Historical

   Examples

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   The theories of advocates of an autochthonous origin of the Indo-Aryans (always called "Aryans") range from (1) a mild version, insisting on the origin of the Ṛgvedic Indo-Aryans in the Panjab, the "autochthonous" or indigenous school…

Adjective

1. In reference to a pseudoscientific historical race theory: Pertaining, in racial theories, to the (alleged) Aryan master race.

   Antonyms

   non-Aryan

   Examples

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   Look at the ravages from which our people are suffering daily as a result of being contaminated with Jewish blood. Bear in mind the fact that this poisonous contamination can be eliminated from the national body only after centuries, or perhaps never. Think further of how the process of racial decomposition is debasing and in some cases even destroying the fundamental Aryan qualities of our German people, so that our cultural creativeness as a nation is gradually becoming impotent and we are running the danger, at least in our great cities, of falling to the level where Southern Italy is to-day.

2. In reference to a pseudoscientific historical race theory: Pertaining to the Caucasian ethnicity.

   Usage

   • Informal

   Examples

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   Neo-Nazis use Nordic religions to fashion a more noble Aryan past and a modern Pan-Aryan community. Symbols from and references to ancient spirituality pepper neo-Nazi literature.

3. In reference to a pseudoscientific historical race theory: Pertaining to Caucasian racists or their organisations, theories, etc.

   Usage

   • US usage
   • euphemistic
   • Informal

   Examples

   Imagine our outrage if the foreign press depicted Aryan groups as representing mainstream Christianity.

4. In reference to a pseudoscientific historical race theory: Of or pertaining to Indo-European peoples, cultures and languages.

   Usage

   • Dated

   Examples

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   1905, Rossiter Johnson, LL.D., chief editor, The Great Events by Famous Historians, volume IV Who were these Teutons? Rome knew them only vaguely as wild tribes dwelling in the gloom of the great forest wilderness. In reality they were but the vanguard of vast races of human beings who through ages had been slowly populating all Eastern Europe and Northern Asia. Beyond the Teutons were other Aryans, the Slavs. Beyond these were vague non-Aryan races like the Huns. […]

5. Of or pertaining to Indo-Iranian peoples, cultures, and languages.

   Usage

   • Dated

   Examples

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   1872-79: John Beames, A Comparative Grammar of the Modern Aryan Languages of India: to wit, Hindi, Panjabi, Sindhi, Gujarati, Marathi, Oriya and Bangall [W]ith all due deference to the opinions of scholars, it may be urged that much of this elaborate development arose in an age when the speech of the people had wandered very far away from the classical type. Even if it were not so, even if there ever were a time when the Aryan peasant used poly-syllabic desideratives, and was familiar with multiform aorists, it is clear that he began to satisfy himself with a simpler system at a very distant epoch, for the range of forms in Pali and the other Prakrits is far narrower than in classical Sanskrit.

   She was very graceful with a very Aryan face, Ringa observed, and the red and white silk sari she was wearing blended exquisitely with her small daintiness.

Proper noun

1. Synonym of Indo-Iranian.

   Usage

   • Dated

2. A male given name of Indian usage.

3. Synonym of Indo-European.

Adjective

1. of or relating to the former Indo-European people

   Synonyms

   Indo-EuropeanIndo-Aryan

   Examples

   Indo-European migrations

Noun

1. (according to Nazi doctrine) a Caucasian person of Nordic descent (and not a Jew)

   Broader terms

   WhiteWhite personCaucasian

2. a member of the prehistoric people who spoke Proto-Indo European

   Synonyms

   Indo-European

   Broader terms

   primitiveprimitive person