Phrygian
adj, name, noun ·Uncommon ·Advanced level
Definitions
- 1 A native or inhabitant of Phrygia.
"‘And so Psammetichus decided the Phrygians must have been the first race on earth, and Phrygian the first language.’"
- 2 Alternative letter-case form of Phrygian, in the musical sense alt-of
- 3 a Thraco-Phrygian language spoken by the ancient inhabitants of Phrygia and now extinct — preserved only in a few inscriptions wordnet
- 4 A Montanist.
- 5 a native or inhabitant of Phrygia wordnet
- 1 Of or relating to Phrygia, its people, or their culture. not-comparable
- 2 Alternative letter-case form of Phrygian alt-of
- 3 Written or spoken in the Phrygian language. not-comparable
"‘Then one day one of the infants stretched out his little hands to the shepherd and exclaimed bekos, which is the Phrygian word for bread.’"
- 4 In the Phrygian mode. not-comparable
- 1 The language of the Phrygian people.
- 2 Phrygian mode
Example
More examples"All history shows: idioms of dominant states often lead to the disappearance of the languages of the dominated states. Greek engulfed the Phrygian. Latin killed the Iberian and Gallic. Currently, 25 languages are disappearing every year! Understand one thing: I'm not fighting against English, I fight for diversity. An Armenian proverb wonderfully summarizes my thought: "The more languages you know, the more you are a person.""
Etymology
From Latin Phrygiānus + English -an (suffix meaning ‘of or pertaining to’ forming adjectives). Phrygianus is derived from Phrygia + -ānus (suffix meaning ‘of or pertaining to’); and Phrygia is from Ancient Greek Φρῠγῐ́ᾱ (Phrŭgĭ́ā, “region in Anatolia”), from Φρῠ́ξ (Phrŭ́x, “person from Phrygia”) (further etymology unknown, possibly from Phrygian or related to Proto-Indo-European *bʰerǵʰ- (“to ascend, rise up; to be elevated, up high”)) + -ῐ́ᾱ (-ĭ́ā, suffix forming feminine abstract nouns).
Related phrases
More for "phrygian"
Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.