Anglo-saxon
adj, name, noun, slang ·Moderate ·High school level
Definitions
- 1 A member of the Germanic peoples who settled in England during the early fifth century.
- 2 English prior to about 1100 wordnet
- 3 A person of English ethnic descent. US
- 4 a native or inhabitant of England prior to the Norman Conquest wordnet
- 5 A lightskinned or blond-haired person presumably of North European descent like British. US
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- 6 a person of Anglo-Saxon (especially British) descent whose native tongue is English and whose culture is strongly influenced by English culture as in WASP for ‘White Anglo-Saxon Protestant’ wordnet
- 1 Related to the Anglo-Saxon peoples or language.
- 2 Related to nations which speak primarily English and are influenced by English culture and customs, especially Australia, Canada, New Zealand, United Kingdom and the United States.
"[...] Ethnography thus aims at record- ing as accurately as possible the respective modes of life of various groups. Ethnology, on the other hand, utilizes for comparative purposes (the nature of which will be explained below) the data provided by the ethnographer. Thus, ethnography has the same meaning in all countries, and ethnology corresponds approximately to what is known in Anglo-Saxon countries—where the term eth- nology has become obsolete—as social or cultural anthropology."
- 3 Favouring a liberal free-market economy.
- 4 Descended from some other North European settlers like the British (English). US
- 1 of or relating to the Anglo-Saxons or their language wordnet
- 1 Synonym of Old English (language). archaic
- 2 Profanity, especially words derived from Old English. informal
"Sometimes these chairmen are authoritarians, who wield the budget-book as a weapon - the junior staff members have some Anglo-Saxon words for them"
Example
More examples"The 100 most common words in English are Anglo-Saxon words."
Etymology
From Anglo- + Saxon, from Latin Anglosaxones (Anglo-Saxones), Latin Angli Saxones (literally “the English Saxons”), as distinguished from the Continental Saxons.
Related phrases
More for "anglo-saxon"
Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.