Semibarbarous
adj ·Rare ·Advanced level
Definitions
- 1 Partially barbarous; not fully civilised. not-comparable
"Mr. Arndt, a German and the Government doctor, invited me to stay at his house while in Coupang, and I gladly accepted his offer, as I only intended making a short visit. We at first began speaking French, but he got on so badly that we soon passed insensibly into Malay; and we afterwards held long discussions on literary, scientific, and philosophical questions in that semi-barbarous language, whose deficiencies we made up by the free use of French or Latin words."
Example
More examples"Mr. Arndt, a German and the Government doctor, invited me to stay at his house while in Coupang, and I gladly accepted his offer, as I only intended making a short visit. We at first began speaking French, but he got on so badly that we soon passed insensibly into Malay; and we afterwards held long discussions on literary, scientific, and philosophical questions in that semi-barbarous language, whose deficiencies we made up by the free use of French or Latin words."
Etymology
From semi- + barbarous.
More for "semibarbarous"
Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.