tribe

From Middle English tribe, tribu, from Old French tribu, from Latin tribus. Doublet of tribus.

• IPA^(key): /tɹaɪb/

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• Rhymes: -aɪb

tribe (plural tribes)

1. A socially, ethnically, or politically cohesive group of people.
   • 2005, Sean Dooley, The Big Twitch, Sydney: Allen and Unwin, page 26:

     The thought of spending a year in close company with twitchers chilled me to the core. Not that I have anything against them, I am terribly fond of the members of the tribe, it is just that basically, they are a bunch of obsessive freaks.

2. (anthropology) A society larger than a band or clan (and which may contain clans) but smaller than a nation (and which may be contained within a nation).
3. (zoology) A group of apes who live and work together.
4. (taxonomy) A hierarchal rank between family and genus.
5. The collective noun for various animals.
6. (stock breeding) A family of animals descended from some particular female progenitor, through the female line.

   the Duchess tribe of shorthorns

• (taxonomy): tribus

• tribal
• tribalism
• tribalist
• tribalistic
• tribally
• tribelet

tribe (third-person singular simple present tribes, present participle tribing, simple past and past participle tribed)

1. (transitive) To distribute into tribes or classes; to categorize.
   • 1696-1699, William Nicolson, English Historical Library

     Our fowl, fish, and quadruped are well tribed.

• ethnic
• Appendix:English collective nouns

• Berti, Breit, Tiber, biter, rebit

• trybe, tribu

From Old French tribu, from Latin tribus.

• IPA^(key): /ˈtriːb(ə)/, /ˈtriːbu/

tribe (plural tribus)

1. One of the twelve tribes of Israel.
2. (rare) Any tribe or kin group.
3. (rare) A league or grouping.

• English: tribe

• “trībe, n.”, in MED Online, Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan, 2007, retrieved 2018-12-03.