Carib
/ˈkarɪb
/noun
1A member of an indigenous South American people living mainly in coastal regions of French Guiana, Suriname, Guyana, and Venezuela.Amerindian groups include the Caribs, the Arawaks, and the Warraus....
- The islands were originally inhabited by the Arawaks, Caribs, and other Amerindians.
- In the pre-Columbian period, Arawaks and later Caribs moved to the region from coastal South America.
2 [mass noun] The language of the Caribs, the only member of the Cariban family of languages still spoken by a substantial number of people (around 20,000). Also called Galibi.Black Caribs are descendants of freed black slaves and Carib Indians, and speak a language related to Carib....
- For a time, Arawak was spoken primarily or exclusively by women and children, while adult men spoke Carib.
- All of the interior Amerindians originally spoke Carib languages, with the exception of the Wapisiana, whose language is in the Arawak linguistic family.
3 (also Island Carib) [mass noun] An unrelated Arawakan language, now extinct, formerly spoken in the Lesser Antilles. See also Black Carib.
adjective
1Relating to the Caribs or their language.The last fluent speaker of the Carib language reportedly died in the 1920s, although efforts are now being made to revive that language....
- The native language of the Garifuna (called Garifuna or Garinagu) comes from the Arawak and Carib languages of their island ancestors.
- The practice of smoking tobacco came from the native American Indians and the Carib Indians of Tobago.
1.1Relating to Island Carib or Black Carib.Carib is spoken along the Caribbean coast by the Garifunas, or Black Caribs, the descendants of fugitive slaves and Carib Indians....
- The warlike Carib people drove the Arawaks from neighboring islands but apparently did not settle on either Antigua or Barbuda.
- The locals sometimes call the main island ‘Hairoun,’ its Carib name.
Origin
From Spanish caribe, from Haitian Creole. Compare with cannibal.