Jump to content

Anglo-Saxon

From Wiktionary, the free dictionary
See also: anglosaxon and anglo-saxon

English

[edit]
English Wikipedia has an article on:
Wikipedia

Alternative forms

[edit]

Etymology

[edit]

From Anglo- +‎ Saxon, from Latin Anglosaxones (Anglo-Saxones), Latin Anglī Saxōnēs (literally “the English Saxons”), as distinguished from the Continental Saxons. Displaced native Old English Angelseaxan.

Pronunciation

[edit]

Proper noun

[edit]

Anglo-Saxon

  1. (now rare) Synonym of Old English (language).
    Meronyms: Anglian, Kentish, Mercian, Northumbrian, West Saxon
    • 2014 December 23, Olivia Judson, “The hemiparasite season [print version: Under the hemiparasite, International New York Times, 24–25 December 2014, page 7]”, in The New York Times‎[4], archived from the original on 23 December 2014:
      [T]he stickiness [of mistletoe berries] persists through the gut, making it hard to defecate mistletoe seeds with any grace. To deal with this, birds like the silky flycatcher, Phainopepla nitens, that are mistletoe specialists, have evolved a "waggle dance" – also known as butt-wiping behavior – where they clean up by rubbing themselves against twigs. Indeed, the association with bird droppings may even be the origin of the word: Some evidence suggests that "mistletoe" comes from Anglo-Saxon for "dung on a twig."
    1. (now often specifically) Old English free of any foreign borrowings (as from Old Norse or Norman French).
  2. (informal) Profanity, especially words derived from Old English.
    • 1954, American Association of University Professors, Bulletin of the American Association of University Professors:
      Sometimes these chairmen are authoritarians, who wield the budget-book as a weapon - the junior staff members have some Anglo-Saxon words for them
    • 1995, Margaret Edson, Wit:
      I haven't eaten in two days. What's left to puke? You may remark that my vocabulary has taken a turn for the Anglo-Saxon.
    • 2008, Zagreus Mike Luoma, Neo-gnosis, →ISBN:
      How fucked up is that? (Pardon my Anglo-Saxon)

Translations

[edit]

See also

[edit]

Noun

[edit]

Anglo-Saxon (plural Anglo-Saxons)

  1. A member of the Germanic peoples who settled in England during the early fifth century.
  2. (US) A person of English ethnic descent.
  3. (US, Mexican-American) A lightskinned or blond-haired person presumably of North European descent like British.

Derived terms

[edit]

Translations

[edit]

Adjective

[edit]

Anglo-Saxon (comparative more Anglo-Saxon, superlative most Anglo-Saxon)

  1. Related to the Anglo-Saxon peoples or language.
  2. Related to nations which speak primarily English and are influenced by English culture and customs, especially Australia, Canada, New Zealand, United Kingdom and the United States.[1]
    • 1963, Claude Lévy-Strauss, translated by Claire Jacobson and Brooke Schoepf, Structural Anthropology, New York: Basic Books, page 2:
      [...] Ethnography thus aims at record-
      ing as accurately as possible the respective modes of life of various
      groups. Ethnology, on the other hand, utilizes for comparative
      purposes (the nature of which will be explained below) the data
      provided by the ethnographer. Thus, ethnography has the same
      meaning in all countries, and ethnology corresponds approximately
      to what is known in Anglo-Saxon countries—where the term eth-
      nology       has become obsolete—as social or cultural anthropology.
  3. (politics) Favouring a liberal free-market economy.
  4. (US) Descended from some other North European settlers like the British (English).

Translations

[edit]

Usage notes

[edit]
  • The term Anglo-Saxon is increasingly avoided especially in American historiography, with opponents of the term claiming that the term was not used by English peoples at the time, or that it represents an attempt to create a historical basis for racism and white supremacy (see for example the development of the term White Anglo-Saxon Protestant (WASP)). The term is less controversial in British historiography, where it is more likely to be considered a neutral term for the Angles and Saxons collectively.[2][3][4]

See also

[edit]

References

[edit]
  1. ^ “Anglo-Saxon”, in Cambridge Dictionary, Cambridge University Press, 6 December 2012 (last accessed)
  2. ^ Mary Rambaran-Olm and Erik Wade (14 July 2021), “The Many Myths of the Term ‘Anglo-Saxon’”, in Smithsonian Magazine‎[1]
  3. ^ Samuel Rubinstein (2023), “Anglo-Saxon Extremists”, in The Critic‎[2]
  4. ^ Esther Knowles (2024-05-11), “Cambridge journal faces backlash for dropping ‘Anglo-Saxon’ from title”, in Varsity‎[3]

Further reading

[edit]

SIL entry for Anglo-Saxon, ISO 639-3 code ang

Retrieved from "https://en.wiktionary.org/w/index.php?title=Anglo-Saxon&oldid=92541102"