HOW TO USE THE DICTIONARY
To look up an entry in The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, use the search window above. For best results, after typing in the word, click on the “Search” button instead of using the “enter” key.
Some compound words (like bus rapid transit, dog whistle, or identity theft) don’t appear on the drop-down list when you type them in the search bar. For best results with compound words, place a quotation mark before the compound word in the search window.
THE USAGE PANEL
The Usage Panel is a group of nearly 200 prominent scholars, creative writers, journalists, diplomats, and others in occupations requiring mastery of language. Annual surveys have gauged the acceptability of particular usages and grammatical constructions.
AMERICAN HERITAGE DICTIONARY APP
The new American Heritage Dictionary app is now available for iOS and Android.
THE AMERICAN HERITAGE DICTIONARY BLOG
The articles in our blog examine new words, revised definitions, interesting images from the fifth edition, discussions of usage, and more.
INTERESTED IN DICTIONARIES?
Check out the Dictionary Society of North America at http://www.dictionarysociety.com
n. 1. A unit of sociopolitical organization consisting of a number of families, clans, or other groups who share a common ancestry and culture and among whom leadership is typically neither formalized nor permanent. 2. A political, ethnic, or ancestral division of ancient states and cultures, especially: a. Any of the three divisions of the ancient Romans, namely, the Latin, Sabine, and Etruscan. b. Any of the 12 divisions of ancient Israel. c. A phyle of ancient Greece. 3. A group of people sharing an occupation, interest, or habit: a tribe of graduate students. 4. Informal A large family. 5. Biology A taxonomic category ranking below a family or subfamily and above a genus and usually containing several genera. [Middle English, from Old French tribu, from Latin tribus, division of the Roman people, perhaps of Etruscan origin or possibly from tri-, three; see trei- in the Appendix of Indo-European roots.] |
The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition copyright ©2022 by HarperCollins Publishers. All rights reserved.
