Native

See also: native

English

Pronunciation

• Audio (General Australian):

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Adjective

Native (not comparable)

1. Aboriginal to a colonized region, especially one colonized by English-speaking people. (Compare native, which is more general.)
   • 2013, Tracy Devine Guzmán, Native and National in Brazil: Indigeneity After Independence, UNC Press Books, →ISBN, page 170:

     […] when the Treaty of Tordesillas (in Portuguese, Tordesilhas) gave the disgruntled Portuguese the land mass now known as Brazil; and leads us all the way into the twenty—first century, with hosts of unsettled Native land claims […]

   1. (US, Canada) Indian: Native American or First Nation; of or relating to (North) American Indians.
      • 2005, Native American Issues: A Reference Handbook, →ISBN, page 82:

        Therefore, in 1885 Congress passed the Major Crimes Act whereby jurisdiction in the case of seven major crimes (the list of crimes was later expanded) occurring on Native lands was placed in the hands of federal courts.

   2. (Australia, New Zealand) Aboriginal; of or relating to Australian Aboriginal peoples, Aborigines.
      • 1904 November 3, in the New Zealand Parliamentary Debates, second session, fifteenth parliament, legislative council and house of representatives, volume 131, Native Land Rating Bill, page 814:

        He did not ask the Council to sanction the removal of all restrictions on Native lands, but simply asked that such lands as are to be rated under this Bill should have their titles freed in so far as to enable the Native owners to lease those lands and obtain some benefit therefrom.

   3. (South Africa) Related to black Africans, especially Bantu.

Noun

Native (plural Natives)

1. An aboriginal inhabitant of a colonized region, especially one colonized by English-speaking people. (Compare native, which is more general.)
   • 2016, Patrick Wolfe, Traces of History: Elementary Structures of Race, Verso Books, →ISBN:

     […] cachet, Amazon Natives have succeeded in attracting an impressive degree of international support. The catastrophic attrition of Natives in Brazil raises the fundamental question of why the Portuguese took Africans there at all. […]

   1. (US, Canada) A Native American.
   2. (Australia, New Zealand) An Aborigine.
   3. (South Africa, dated, possibly offensive) A black African, especially a Bantu.
      • 1901 December 6, J. J. Jackson, “District Reports”, in The Agricultural Journal and Mining Record‎^[1], volume 4, number 20, page 613:

        Thunderstorms have been more frequent, and I regret to say during one last week a Native kraal was struck by lightning, the electric fluid killing three head of cattle; several Natives in a hut received a shock, but happily no further injury.

Usage notes

See the usage notes at native.