barbarian

1. 1.

   without civilizing influences

   “barbarian invaders”

   “barbaric practices”

   “a savage people”

   “fighting is crude and uncivilized especially if the weapons are efficient”

   “wild tribes”

   Synonymsbarbaricsavageuncivilizeduncivilisedwild

   Similarnoncivilized

Other forms of barbarian

plural

barbarians·

Forms marked · are formed by the regular rule rather than recorded in the source data. English keeps a few hundred irregulars and the rest follow the pattern, so the rule is right far more often than not — but it is a rule, and the mark says so.

Questions about barbarian

What does barbarian mean?

barbarian means "a member of an uncivilized people". That is the primary sense; the word has 3 in total, listed in full on this page.

How many syllables are in barbarian?

barbarian has 4 syllables: bar-bar-i-an. The stress falls on "bar". In IPA it is /bɑɹˈbɛɹiən/.

What is another word for barbarian?

Close synonyms include savage, peasant, boor, churl, Goth. Each sense on this page lists its own synonyms, because a word with several meanings rarely has one substitute that works for all of them.

Is barbarian a common word?

barbarian is banded "Familiar" — widely understood, used when the subject calls for it. The band comes from how often the word appears in a large corpus of everyday English, not from an editor's impression.