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[Middle English, from Scottish Gaelic clann, family, from Old Irish cland, offspring, from Latin planta, plant, sprout.]
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Britannica Concise Encyclopedia:
clan |
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Roget's Thesaurus:
clan |
Oxford Dictionary of Archaeology:
clan |
A kin group stretching more broadly than the family, found in many pre-industrial societies.
The English borrowing of this word from Scottish Gaelic obscures the more precise use of clann in both Irish and Scottish Gaelic as well as the existence of several other concepts of family and descent, such as cenél, dál, and derbfhine; see also TUATH, which may be glossed as ‘people’ or ‘tribe’, and is predominantly territorial in meaning. In English, clan usually denotes a group with a common ancestor. It implies kinship, not territory. Its ultimate source is the Latin planta [plant, planting]. The Old Irish clann is defined as ‘children, family, offspring; a single child; descendants, race, [and finally] clan’. The Modern Irish clann is also defined first as ‘race’ or ‘children’. In Scottish Gaelic the first definition of clann is ‘offspring’ and ‘children’. The Welsh llwyth translates ‘clan’ more in the sense of tribe, while tylwyth implies family or shared ancestry. Breton koskoriad denotes family or shared descent while klan, apparently borrowed from Scottish Gaelic via English and French, denotes a tribe or larger family. Attached to many a clan in Scotland is the sept [Scottish Gaelic cinneach], whose blood link to a common ancestor may be either distant or questionable. See also CORCU. Entries for individual clans, e.g. Clan Baíscne, Clan Chattan, Clan Dedad, are found under their family names.
Bibliography
Columbia Encyclopedia:
clan |
Bibliography
See Sir Iain Moncreiffe, The Highland Clans (1967); R. Fox, Kinship and Marriage (1984); E. Gellner, The Concept of Kinship (1987).
Word Tutor:
clan |
The whole clan got together for a picnic.
Tutor's tip: Within the "Klan" (racist, white supremacist organization), there is more than one "clan" (a clique or social group).
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Wiley Dictionary of Flavors:
Moiety |
Oxford Dictionary of Biochemistry:
clan |
| cladogram, cladogenesis, cladistics | |
| clarify, class, class switch |
Random House Word Menu:
categories related to 'clan' |
Wikipedia on Answers.com:
Clan |
A clan is a group of people united by actual or perceived kinship and descent. Even if lineage details are unknown, clan members may be organized around a founding member or apical ancestor. The kinship-based bonds may be symbolical, whereby the clan shares a "stipulated" common ancestor that is a symbol of the clan's unity. When this ancestor is not human, it is referred to as an animalian totem. Clans can be most easily described as tribes or sub-groups of tribes. The word clan is derived from 'clann' meaning 'family' in the Irish and Scottish Gaelic languages. The word was taken into English about 1425 as a label for the tribal nature of Irish and Scottish Gaelic society.[1] The Gaelic term for clan is fine [finɨ]. Clans preceded more centralized forms of community organization and government; they are located in every country. Members may identify with a coat of arms or other symbol to show they are an independent clan.
In different cultures and situations, a clan may mean the same thing as other kin-based groups, such as tribes and bands. Often, the distinguishing factor is that a clan is a smaller part of a larger society such as a tribe, a chiefdom, or a state. Examples include Scottish, Irish, Chinese, Japanese clans, Rajput clans, Nair Clan or Malayala Kshatriya Clan in India and Pakistan, which exist as kin groups within their respective nations. Note, however, that tribes and bands can also be components of larger societies. However, the early Norse clans, the ätter, can not be translated with tribe or band, and consequently they are often translated as house or line. The 12 Biblical tribes of Israel composed one people. Arab clans are small groups within Arab society. Ojibwa bands are smaller parts of the Ojibwa tribe or people in North America, as one example of the many Native American peoples distinguished by language and culture, most having clans and bands as the basic kinship organizations. In some cases more than one tribe recognized each other's clans; for instance, both the Chickasaw and Choctaw tribes had fox and bear clans whose membership could supersede the tribe.[citation needed]
Apart from these different historical traditions of kinship, conceptual confusion arises from colloquial usages of the term. In post-Soviet countries, for example, it is quite common to speak of "clans" in reference to informal networks within the economic and political sphere. This usage reflects the assumption that their members act towards each other in a particularly close and mutually supportive way approximating the solidarity among kinsmen.
Polish clans differ from most others as they are a collection of families who bear the same coat of arms, as opposed to claiming a common descent. This is discussed under the topic of Polish Heraldry.
Clans in indigenous societies are likely to be exogamous, meaning that their members cannot marry one another. In some societies, clans may have an official leader such as a chieftain or patriarch; in others, leadership positions may have to be achieved, or people may say that 'elders' make decisions. There are multiple closely related clans in the Indian sub-continent, especially south India.
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Translations:
Clan |
Dansk (Danish)
n. - klan, stor familie
Nederlands (Dutch)
clan, stam/geslacht
Français (French)
n. - (lit, fig) clan
Deutsch (German)
n. - Clan, Sippe
Ελληνική (Greek)
n. - πατριά, φυλή, συγγενολόι, σόι, (μτφ.) παρέα, κλίκα
Português (Portuguese)
n. - clã (m)
Svenska (Swedish)
n. - klan, enig släkt, kotteri (sl.), gäng
中文（简体）(Chinese (Simplified))
氏族, 党派, 宗族
中文（繁體）(Chinese (Traditional))
n. - 氏族, 黨派, 宗族
日本語 (Japanese)
n. - 氏族, 一族, 閥, 党派
العربيه (Arabic)
(الاسم) عشيرة
עברית (Hebrew)
n. - משפחה גדולה, שבט, חמולה, כת, קבוצה עם אינטרס חזק משותף, מין של בעלי-חיים
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 | American Heritage Dictionary. The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition Copyright © 2007, 2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Updated in 2009. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved. Read more |
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| Britannica Concise Encyclopedia. Britannica Concise Encyclopedia. © 1994-2012 Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. All rights reserved. Read more |
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| Roget's Thesaurus. Roget's II: The New Thesaurus, Third Edition by the Editors of the American Heritage® Dictionary Copyright © 1995 byHoughton Mifflin Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved. Read more |
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| Oxford Dictionary of Archaeology. The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Archaeology. Copyright © 2002, 2003 by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved. Read more |
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| Oxford Dictionary of Celtic Mythology. A Dictionary of Celtic Mythology. Copyright © James MacKillop 1998, 2004. All rights reserved. Read more |
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Oxford Dictionary of Biochemistry. Oxford University Press. Oxford Dictionary of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology © 1997, 2000, 2006 All rights reserved. Read more | |
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