Definitions

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • adjective pertaining to the ancient people of eastern Africa, considered the descendants of biblical Cush
  • proper noun a member of one of the peoples of eastern Africa, or any black African
  • proper noun a sub-family of the Afro-Asiatic languages, Cushitic

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

Cush + -ite, coined in the 1820s. In the early 19th century, the term referred to dark-skinned east Africans (synonymous with Herodotus' Ethiopians) in general. The technical linguistic sense is due to Friedrich Müller (1876).

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