Demonym

//ˈdɛmənɪm// noun

noun ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    A name for an inhabitant or native of a specific place, usually derived from the name of the place.

    "Why is it that people from the United States use American as their demonym?"

  2. 2
    A pseudonym formed of an adjective. obsolete

    "The Logophile has my favourite demonym; I would write under it if he didn't."

Synonyms

All synonyms
gentilicgentilic

Example

More examples

"He had to choose between "Earthling" and "Terran" for their demonym."

Etymology

From demo- + -onym, from Ancient Greek δῆμος (dêmos, “people”) + ὄνυμα (ónuma, “name”). Possibly revived in 1997 by Paul Dickson of Merriam-Webster.

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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.