Indo-European: Meaning and Definition of

In•do-Eu•ro•pe•an

Pronunciation: (in'dō yoor"u-pē'un), [key]
— n.
  1. a large, widespread family of languages, the surviving branches of which include Italic, Slavic, Baltic, Hellenic, Celtic, Germanic, and Indo-Iranian, spoken by about half the world's population: English, Spanish, German, Latin, Greek, Russian, Albanian, Lithuanian, Armenian, Persian, Hindi, and Hittite are all Indo-European languages. Cf. family (def. 14).
  2. Proto-Indo-European (def. 1).
  3. a member of any of the peoples speaking an Indo-European language.
—adj.
  1. of or belonging to Indo-European.
  2. speaking an Indo-European language: an Indo-European people.
Random House Unabridged Dictionary, Copyright © 1997, by Random House, Inc., on Infoplease.
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