Vlach
/[vlɑːk]/ noun
noun ·Rare ·Advanced level
Definitions
Noun
- 1 A Wallachian.
- 2 A Romanian.
- 3 Any member of an Eastern Romance speaking group, including Romanians, Aromanians, Megleno-Romanians, and Istro-Romanians.
- 4 Any member of a Polish ethnographic group (subgroup of Silesians) living around the towns of Cieszyn and Skoczów
Synonyms
All synonymsEtymology
From Proto-Slavic *volxъ (“speaker of a Romance language”), from Proto-Germanic *walhaz (“non-Germanic foreigner, Celt; later Roman”). Presumably introduced into Slavic around the 7th century, but first recorded only in the 11th century in Byzantine Greek. In English used as a synonym of "Wallachian" from the 19th century. The word is etymologically distantly related to Wales/Welsh, Walloon, and Gaul. Doublet of Gaul and wealh.
Related phrases
More for "vlach"
Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.