Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun A member of a Dravidian people of southern India and northern Sri Lanka.
  • noun The Dravidian language of the Tamil.
  • adjective Of or relating to the Tamil or their language or culture.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun One of a race of men inhabiting southern India and Ceylon, belonging to the Dravidian stock. The Tamils form the most civilized and energetic of the Dravidian peoples.
  • noun A language spoken in southern India and in parts of Ceylon. It is a member of the Dravidian or Tamilian family. See Dravidian.
  • noun Also Tamul, Tamulic.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • adjective Of or pertaining to the Tamils, or to their language.
  • noun (Ethnol.) One of a Dravidian race of men native of Northern Ceylon and Southern India.
  • noun The Tamil language, the most important of the Dravidian languages. See Dravidian, a.

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

  • adjective Of or pertaining to the Tamil people, culture, or language.
  • noun A person whose ethnic origins come from Tamil Nadu, India or Sri Lanka.
  • proper noun A Dravidian language spoken in the state of Tamil Nadu, India and in Sri Lanka, Singapore, Malaysia.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • adjective of or relating to a speaker of the Tamil language or the language itself
  • noun a member of the mixed Dravidian and Caucasian people of southern India and Sri Lanka
  • noun the Dravidian language spoken since prehistoric times by the Tamil in southern India and Sri Lanka

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Tamil.]

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Examples

  • Dr. Karunaratne who uses the term Tamil homeland in his campaign and says that it is in ruins today but the war is not over, is hopeful of "national unity based on Equality, Autonomy and the Rights of Self Determination."

    Elections - fresh news by plazoo.com 2009

  • Dr. Karunaratne who uses the term Tamil homeland in his campaign and says that it is in ruins today but the war is not over, is hopeful of "national unity based on Equality, Autonomy and the Rights of Self Determination."

    Elections - fresh news by plazoo.com 2009

  • Dr. Karunaratne who uses the term Tamil homeland in his campaign and says that it is in ruins today but the war is not over, is hopeful of "national unity based on Equality, Autonomy and the Rights of Self Determination."

    Elections - fresh news by plazoo.com 2009

  • Dr. Karunaratne who uses the term Tamil homeland in his campaign and says that it is in ruins today but the war is not over, is hopeful of "national unity based on Equality, Autonomy and the Rights of Self Determination."

    Elections - fresh news by plazoo.com 2009

  • Police in Tamil Nadu are working on a theory that a transexual gang operating in south India is luring young boys and forcing them to undergo sex change operation and later engage them in prostitution.

    Retired doctor carries out GRS on children who are then trafficked into prostitution 2009

  • An estimated 30,000 transgender persons live in Tamil Nadu and there are more than half a million of them across India.

    Retired doctor carries out GRS on children who are then trafficked into prostitution 2009

  • A Tamil is not just ‘anyone who happens to live within the boundaries of TN’.

    Matthew Yglesias » Far-Right European Posters 2010

  • PUDUCHERRY: In a bizarre ritual, two minor girls, both seven, from the remote Pallipudupet village in Tamil Nadu's Villupuram district were married off to frogs on Friday night.

    January 21st, 2009 m_francis 2009

  • Both major political parties in Tamil Nadu originated from the ideology of Dravidian nationalism (their very names tell you so).

    Matthew Yglesias » Far-Right European Posters 2010

  • The Times of India reports that two young girls have been wed to frogs in Tamil Nadu's Villupuram district, to prevent the outbreak of mysterious diseases in the village ''.

    Boing Boing 2009

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