Definitions

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

  • adjective Primitive or undeveloped in culture and customs; uncivilized.
  • adjective Lacking refinement or culture; coarse.
  • adjective Characterized by savagery; very cruel.
  • adjective Marked by the use or occurrence of barbarisms in spoken or written language.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • Foreign; not classical or pure; abounding in barbarisms; of or pertaining to an illiterate people: applied to language, originally to languages which were not Greek or Latin. See barbarism.
  • Speaking a foreign language; foreign; outlandish: applied to people. [Archaic.] See barbarian, n., 1.
  • Characterized by or showing ignorance of arts and civilization; uncivilized; rude; wild; savage: as, barbarous peoples, nations, or countries; barbarous habits or customs.
  • Pertaining to or characteristic of barbarians; adapted to the taste of barbarians; barbaric; of outlandish character.
  • Cruel; ferocious; inhuman: as, barbarous treatment.
  • Harsh-sounding, like the speech of barbarians: as, wild and barbarous music.
  • Synonyms Barbarian, Barbarous, Barbaric (see barbarian); ruthless, brutal, fierce, bloody, savage, truculent.

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

  • adjective Being in the state of a barbarian; uncivilized; rude; peopled with barbarians.
  • adjective obsolete Foreign; adapted to a barbaric taste.
  • adjective Cruel; ferocious; inhuman; merciless.
  • adjective Contrary to the pure idioms of a language.

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

  • adjective Not classical or pure.
  • adjective uncivilized, uncultured
  • adjective Like a barbarian, especially in sound; noisy, dissonant.

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

  • adjective primitive in customs and culture
  • adjective (of persons or their actions) able or disposed to inflict pain or suffering

Etymologies

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

[From Latin barbarus, from Greek barbaros, non-Greek, foreign; see barbarism.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Latin barbarus ("foreigner, savage"), from Ancient Greek βάρβαρος (barbaros, "foreign, strange").

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Examples

  • In the times which we call barbarous, great benefices and abbeys were taxed in France to the third of their revenue.

    A Philosophical Dictionary 2007

  • The specific atrocity of such spectacles -- unknown to the earlier ages which they called barbarous -- was due to the cold-blooded selfishness, the hideous realism of a refined, delicate, æsthetic age.

    The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 03 Rossiter Johnson 1906

  • So far as the essence of justice is concerned, there is no difference between one of the cases of punishment which you called barbarous, and one in which the penalty follows the offence within the hour.

    Dr. Heidenhoff's Process Edward Bellamy 1874

  • Mark would not, and Prue could not, go to see the traveller off; the former being too angry to lend his countenance to what he termed a barbarous banishment, the latter, being half blind with crying, stayed to nurse Jessie, whose soft heart was nearly broken at what seemed to her the most direful affliction under heaven.

    Moods Louisa May Alcott 1860

  • A high degree of refinement, however, does not seem to subdue our wicked propensities so much after all; and were civilization itself to be estimated by some of its results, it would seem perhaps better for what we call the barbarous part of the world to remain unchanged.

    Typee Herman Melville 1855

  • Page view page image: it would seem perhaps better for what we call the barbarous part of the world to remain unchanged.

    Narrative of a four months' residence among the natives of a valley of the Marquesas Islands, or, A peep at Polynesian life 1846

  • A high degree of refinement, however, does not seem to subdue our wicked propensities so much after all; and were civilization itself to be estimated by some of it's results, it would seem perhaps better for what we call the barbarous part of the world to remain unchanged.

    Typee; a real romance of the South Seas 1846

  • Italy's president, Giorgio Napolitano, decried what he called the "barbarous killing of two foreign workers" and denounced "this blind explosion of hatred."

    Yahoo! News: Business - Opinion 2011

  • Italy's President Giorgio Napolitano condemned what he called the "barbarous killing of two foreign workers" and denounced "this blind explosion of hatred".

    WalesOnline - Home WalesOnline 2011

  • Italy's president, Giorgio Napolitano, decried what he called the "barbarous killing of two foreign workers" and denounced "this blind explosion of hatred."

    Yahoo! News: Business - Opinion 2011

Comments

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  • This word was used in "Breaker Morant" during the court martial.

    June 16, 2012