| Aryan | n. [ Skr. ārya excellent, honorable; akin to the name of the country Iran, and perh. to Erin, Ireland, and the early name of this people, at least in Asia. ] 1. One of a primitive people supposed to have lived in prehistoric times, in Central Asia, east of the Caspian Sea, and north of the Hindu Kush and Paropamisan Mountains, and to have been the stock from which sprang the Hindu, Persian, Greek, Latin, Celtic, Teutonic, Slavonic, and other races; one of that ethnological division of mankind called also Indo-European or Indo-Germanic. [ 1913 Webster ] 2. The language of the original Aryans. [ Written also Arian. ] [ 1913 Webster ] 3. (Nazism) a non-Jewish caucasian of Nordic stock; -- a classification used by Nazis, having no anthropological basis. [ Written also Arian. ] [ PJC ] |
