Word.ws English Dictionary

native

Syllables: na·tive/ˈneɪtəv/UK/ˈneɪtɪv/

native adjective: belonging to one by birth or ancestry. Also the alternative letter-case form of Native.

Adjective (1)

native (comparative more native, superlative most native)

  1. Belonging to one by birth or ancestry.
    • This is my native land.
    • English is not my native language.
    Synonyms:
    inborn
  2. Characteristic of or relating to people inhabiting a region from prehistoric times.
    • Many native artists studied abroad.
    • Native peoples in the continental United States are called Native Americans or American Indians.
  3. Born or grown in the region in which it lives or is found; not foreign or imported.
    • native oysters or strawberries
    • Clover is not native to the Americas, but it is firmly established there.
    Synonyms:
    aboriginal
  4. Which occurs of its own accord in a given locality, to be contrasted with a species introduced by humans.
    • The naturalized Norway maple often outcompetes the native North American sugar maple.
  5. Pertaining to the system or architecture in question.
    • This is a native back-end to gather the latest news feeds.
    • The native integer size is sixteen bits.
  6. Occurring naturally in its pure or uncombined form.
    • native aluminium
    • native salt
  7. Arising by birth; having an origin; born.
    • Anaximander's opinion is, that the gods are native, rising and vanishing again in long periods of times.1678, R[alph] Cudworth, The True Intellectual System of the Universe: The First Part; wherein All the Reason and Philosophy of Atheism is Confuted; and Its Impossibility Demonstrated, London: […]...
  8. Original; constituting the original substance of anything.
    • native dust
    • 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], and are to be sold by Peter Parker […]; [a]nd by Robert Boulter […]; [a]nd Matthias Walker, […], →OCLC; republished...
  9. Naturally related; cognate; connected (with).
    • 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...

Noun (1)

native (plural natives)

  1. A person who is native to a place; a person who was born in a place.
  2. 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).
    • 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, →ISBN
  3. A native speaker.
  4. A native plant or animal.
    Antonyms:
    exotic
  5. An oyster of species Ostrea edulis.

Adjective (2) capitalized: Native

Native (not comparable)

  1. Aboriginal to a colonized region, especially one colonized by English-speaking people. (Compare native, which is more general.)
    • […] when the Treaty of Tordesillas (in Portuguese, Tordesilhas) gave the disgruntled Portuguese the land mass now known as Brazil; and leads us all the way into the twenty—first century, with hosts of unsettled Native land claims […]2013, Tracy Devine Guzmán, Native and National in Brazil: Indigeneity After Independence, UNC Press Books, →ISBN, page 170
    1. (Canada, US) Indian: Native American or First Nation; of or relating to (North) American Indians.
      • Indian agents actas a government representatives to communities of Native North Americans.
      • Therefore, in 1885 Congress passed the Major Crimes Act whereby jurisdiction in the case of seven major crimes (the list of crimes was later expanded) occurring on Native lands was placed in the hands of federal courts.2005, Native American Issues: A Reference Handbook, →ISBN, page 82
    2. (Australia, New Zealand) Aboriginal; of or relating to Australian Aboriginal peoples, Aborigines.
      • He did not ask the Council to sanction the removal of all restrictions on Native lands, but simply asked that such lands as are to be rated under this Bill should have their titles freed in so far as to enable the Native owners to lease those lands and obtain some benefit therefrom.1904 November 3, in the New Zealand Parliamentary Debates, second session, fifteenth parliament, legislative council and house of representatives, volume 131, Native Land Rating Bill, page 814
    3. (South Africa) Related to black Africans, especially Bantu.

Noun (2) capitalized: Native

Native (plural Natives)

  1. An aboriginal inhabitant of a colonized region, especially one colonized by English-speaking people. (Compare native, which is more general.)
    • […] cachet, Amazon Natives have succeeded in attracting an impressive degree of international support. The catastrophic attrition of Natives in Brazil raises the fundamental question of why the Portuguese took Africans there at all. […]2016, Patrick Wolfe, Traces of History: Elementary Structures of Race, Verso Books, →ISBN
    1. (Canada, US) A Native American.
    2. (Australia, New Zealand) An Aborigine.
    3. (South Africa, dated, offensive, possibly) A black African, especially a Bantu.
      • Thunderstorms have been more frequent, and I regret to say during one last week a Native kraal was struck by lightning, the electric fluid killing three head of cattle; several Natives in a hut received a shock, but happily no further injury.1901 December 6, J. J. Jackson, “District Reports”, in The Agricultural Journal and Mining Record, volume 4, number 20, page 613

Also used as

native is also the alternative letter-case form of Native.

native meaning in Hindi, Tamil, Telugu and Malayalam

native in Hindi

belonging to one by birth
मूल mūl, उत्पत्ति utpatti
characteristic of or relating to people inhabiting a region from prehistoric times
मूल mūl, उत्पत्ति utpatti
born or grown in the region in which it lives or is found
मूल mūl

native in Tamil

பூர்வீகம்

native in Telugu

belonging to one by birth
జన్మస్థలం janmasthalaṁ

native in Malayalam

person who is native to a place
സ്വദേശി svadēśi, നാട്ടുകാരൻ nāṭṭukāraṉ
More languagesFewer languages
native in Punjabi
ਮੂਲ ਨਿਵਾਸੀ, ਮੂਲ-ਨਿਵਾਸੀ
native in Gujarati
મૂળ વતની, વતની
native in Odia
ଦେଶୀ
native in Sanskrit
देशज deśaja
native in Assamese
থলুৱা tholua
native in Nepali
देशी
native in Tagalog
katutubo
native in Arabic
أَصْلِيّ ʔaṣliyy
native in Persian
بومی bumi

Examples of native in a sentence

  • I need a volunteer native New Yorker for my next joke…
  • cloud native, crypto native
  • They have a native language of their owne, but the Persian tongue is understood by most.1638, Sir Thomas Herbert, Some Yeares Travels into Africa and Asia the Great, second edition, page 37:
  • Happy the man, whose wish and care / A few paternal acres bound, / Content to breathe his native air / In his own ground.c. 1700, Alexander Pope, Ode on Solitude, first quatrain:
  • Those of the western church were obliged to acquire some knowledge of Latin; and for Greek, to those of the eastern church it was still (with a few corruptions) their native language.1780, James Harris, Philological Inquiries (pages 385–539), in The Works of James Harris, Esq., with an account of His Life and Character...
  • […] But to the Snake those accents sweet were known / His native tongue and hers; […]1817, Percy Bysshe Shelley, The Revolt of Islam, canto I, stanza xix, lines 5–6:

All 40 example sentences with native

Synonyms of native

Antonyms

All synonyms and antonyms of native

Forms of native

Adjective
comparativemore native
superlativemost native
alternative form (obsolete)natiue
alternative form (obsolete)natyf
Noun
pluralnatives
pluralNatives

Plural of native: natives

Origin of native

Inherited from Middle English natif, from Old French natif, from Latin nātīvus, from nātus (“birth”). Doublet of naive and neif. Displaced native Middle English thedisch, equivalent to (puristic) theed + -ish. By surface analysis, Latin nat- + -ive. Compare also inborn.

Words formed from native

Phrases with native

39 more phrasesFewer phrases

Words that rhyme with native

18 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about native

What does native mean?
Native means belonging to one by birth or ancestry.
What is native in Hindi?
Native in Hindi is मूल (mūl), उत्पत्ति (utpatti). See Native meaning in Hindi.
How do you use native in a sentence?
I need a volunteer native New Yorker for my next joke…
What part of speech is native?
Native can be an adjective or a noun.
How do you pronounce native?
Native is pronounced /ˈneɪtɪv/ (UK).

Words near native in the dictionary

  1. Natipuan
  2. natisite
  3. natiue
  4. nativar
  5. nativars
  6. native
  7. native advertising
  8. Native America
  9. Native American
  10. Native American Church
  11. Native American Day

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: native (page history and authors); Native (page history and authors); native (Tamil, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); native (Punjabi, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); native (Gujarati, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); native (Odia, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); native (Nepali, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-us-native.ogg, en-au-Native.ogg.

Cite this entry: “native.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/native. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.