ENGLISH
REFERENCE

ethnic

adj.
B2 Upper Intermediate Oxford US //ˈɛθnɪk// UK //ˈɛθnɪk// eth·nic Academic Archaic General-service

adj. relating to a group of people who share the same culture, language, or history. You use it to describe things that belong to a specific national or cultural tradition.

adj. relating to a population subgroup with a common national or cultural tradition. Often used to categorise cultural products, such as food or clothing, that originate from a specific non-Western heritage.


SIMPLE

The city has many different ethnic restaurants.

CONTEXTUAL

The festival celebrates the ethnic diversity of the local community through traditional music and dance.

COMPLEX

Sociologists often examine how ethnic identity is maintained across generations when a minority group lives within a dominant culture that does not share its traditions.

Synonyms
Origin

From Middle English ethnik, from Latin ethnicus ("pagan", "heathen"), from Ancient Greek ἐθνικός (ethnikós, “of or for a nation, heathen”), from ἔθνος (éthnos, “a company", later "a people or nation, heathens”). By surface analysis, ethno- + -ic.

Usage

Typically used as an attributive adjective before a noun. While the metadata lists it as a noun, the adjective sense is significantly more common in modern general-service English.

Pitfall

He is an ethnic.He belongs to an ethnic group.In modern English, using 'ethnic' as a noun to refer to a person is often considered offensive or grammatically incomplete; it should be used as an adjective.

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