Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- noun A large family of languages spoken especially in southern India and northern Sri Lanka that includes Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam, and Kannada.
- noun A member of any of the peoples that speak one of the Dravidian languages, especially a member of one of the pre-Indo-European peoples of southern India.
from The Century Dictionary.
- Of or pertaining to Dravida or Dravira, an ancient province of southern India: specifically applied to a family of tongues spoken in southern India and Ceylon, supposed by some to be Scythian or Ural-Altaic, by others to constitute an independent group of languages. It includes Tamil, Telugu, Canarese, Malayālam or Malabar, Tulu, etc. Also called
Tamilian .
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- adjective (Ethnol.) Of or pertaining to the Dravida.
- adjective a group of languages of Southern India, which seem to have been the idioms of the natives, before the invasion of tribes speaking Sanskrit. Of these languages, the Tamil is the most important; Telegu, Malayalam, and Kannada are included. These languages are distinct from the Indo-European family of languages.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- proper noun A family of related ethnicities and languages primarily in Southern
India , NortheastSri Lanka , and parts ofPakistan , andBangladesh . - proper noun Any of the
languages of these aboriginal peoples;Dravidic . - noun A member of any of several
aboriginal peoples ofIndia andSri Lanka thought to have spread in India beforeAryan migration .
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- noun a member of one of the aboriginal races of India (pushed south by Caucasians and now mixed with them)
- noun a large family of languages spoken in south and central India and Sri Lanka
Etymologies
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
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Examples
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"DMK is the only party that has fully understood the true meaning of the word Dravidian and establishing the ideals," he said, while admitting people from other parties from Namakkal and
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And most southern Indians are "Dravidian"--very dark skinned people.
A tiger escaped from its enclosure and roamed around the San Francisco Zoo preying on human beings. Ann Althouse 2007
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In south India, a new identity called Dravidian Christianity is being constructed.
Rajiv Malhotra: How Evangelists Invented 'Dravidian Christianity' Rajiv Malhotra 2011
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A new religion called "Dravidian Christianity" has been invented through a sudden upsurge of writings designed to "discover" the existence of quasi-Christianity in Tamil history prior to the coming of the "Aryan" Brahmins.
Rajiv Malhotra: How Evangelists Invented 'Dravidian Christianity' Rajiv Malhotra 2011
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A new religion called "Dravidian Christianity" has been invented through a sudden upsurge of writings designed to "discover" the existence of quasi-Christianity in Tamil history prior to the coming of the "Aryan" Brahmins.
Rajiv Malhotra: How Evangelists Invented 'Dravidian Christianity' Rajiv Malhotra 2011
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In south India, a new identity called Dravidian Christianity is being constructed.
Rajiv Malhotra: How Evangelists Invented 'Dravidian Christianity' Rajiv Malhotra 2011
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Brahui tribe in Baluchistan who speak a Dravidian language but have no physical resemblance to other Dravidian races cannot be satisfactorily explained, but, as he points out, this is no reason for holding that the whole body of speakers of Dravidian languages entered India from the north-west, and, with the exception of this small group of Brahuis, penetrated to the south and settled there without leaving any traces of their passage.
The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India—Volume I (of IV) Robert Vane Russell 1894
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In his valedictory address, SVU Vice-Chancellor N. Prabhakara Rao called Dravidian culture not only the greatest, but also one of the ancient in the world.
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In his valedictory address, SVU Vice-Chancellor N. Prabhakara Rao called Dravidian culture not only the greatest, but also one of the ancient in the world.
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The reason for speculating that the whole of the land-mass was once Dravidian speaking is due to the fact that even today, sections of the Baluch population speak a Dravidian language.
Pak Tea House 2009
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