punic

1. 1.

   of or relating to or characteristic of ancient Carthage or its people or their language

   “the Punic Wars”

   “Carthaginian peace”

   SynonymsCarthaginian
2. 2.

   tending to betray; especially having a treacherous character as attributed to the Carthaginians by the Romans

   “Punic faith”

   “the perfidious Judas”

   “the fiercest and most treacherous of foes”

   “treacherous intrigues”

   Synonymsperfidioustreacherous

   Similarunfaithful

1. 1.

   the Phoenician dialect of ancient Carthage

   BroaderPhoenician

Other forms of punic

plural

punics·

comparative

punicer·

superlative

punicest·

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 punic

What does punic mean?

punic means "of or relating to or characteristic of ancient Carthage or its people or their language". That is the primary sense; the word has 3 in total, listed in full on this page.

How many syllables are in punic?

punic has 2 syllables: pu-nic. The stress falls on "pu". In IPA it is /ˈpjunɪk/.

What is another word for punic?

Close synonyms include Carthaginian, perfidious, treacherous. 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 punic a common word?

punic is banded "Uncommon" — turns up in careful writing rather than conversation. The band comes from how often the word appears in a large corpus of everyday English, not from an editor's impression.