Definition of "native"

native

/ˈneɪtɪv/

adjective
comparative more native, superlative most native
1. Belonging to one by birth.
2. Characteristic of or relating to people inhabiting a region from prehistoric times.
3. Alternative letter-case form of Native (of or relating to the native inhabitants of the Americas, or of Australia).
4. Born or grown in the region in which it lives or is found; not foreign or imported.
5. (biology, of a species) Which occurs of its own accord in a given locality, to be contrasted with a species introduced by humans.
6. (computing, of software) Pertaining to the system or architecture in question.
7. (mineralogy) Occurring naturally in its pure or uncombined form.
8. Arising by birth; having an origin; born.
9. Original; constituting the original substance of anything.
  Quotations
  Must I thus leave thee Paradise? thus leave Thee Native Soile, these happie Walks and Shades, Fit haunt of Gods?
  1667, John Milton, “Book X”, in Paradise Lost. […], London: […] [Samuel Simmons], […]; republished as Paradise Lost in Ten Books: […], London: Basil Montagu Pickering […], 1873,
10. Naturally related; cognate; connected (with).
  Quotations
  The head is not more native to the heart, […] Than is the throne of Denmark to thy father.
  c. 1599–1602 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Hamlet, Prince of Denmarke”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, [Act I, scene ii]
noun
plural natives
1. A person who is native to a place; a person who was born in a place.
2. (in particular) A person of aboriginal descent, as distinguished from a person who was or whose ancestors were foreigners or settlers/colonizers. Alternative letter-case form of Native (aboriginal inhabitant of the Americas or Australia).
  Quotations
  Mail trains are limited to first and second class passengers, but on the mixed trains third class is also provided, and this is patronised exclusively by natives.
  1940 December, O. S. M. Raw, “The Rhodesia Railways—II”, in Railway Magazine, page 640
  Dr John Reid, a historian called to testify for Mr Marshall, distinguished between the fur trade at the truckhouses and a smaller scale trade between natives and settlers: "It seems that there were native persons who were selling small amounts […] "
  2009, Alex M. Cameron, Power without Law: The Supreme Court of Canada, the Marshall Decisions and the Failure of Judicial Activism, McGill-Queen's Press - MQUP
  As for the wars between natives and settlers, far from having “ceased,” they would continue well into the twentieth century, and over much the same things that had always sparked them—trade, land, and settler arrogance.
  2013, James Ciment, Another America: The Story of Liberia and the Former Slaves Who Ruled It, Hill and Wang, page 72
3. A native speaker.
4. Ostrea edulis, a kind of oyster.

Definition of "native"

native

adjective

Quotations

Quotations

noun

Quotations