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Pelasgian

Pelasgian noun: an inhabitant of pre-Hellenic Greece.

Noun

Pelasgian (plural Pelasgians or Pelasgi)

  1. An inhabitant of pre-Hellenic Greece.
    • It seems evident that the Hellenes much excelled the Pelasgians in the spirit of enterprise and in military accomplishments.1830, Henry Malden, History of Rome, Baldwin and Cradock, page 70
    • In Homer the Pelasgians¹ are of little importance. They are inhabitants of Asia Minor, where they possess a Larissa, and fight in the ranks of the Trojan army. We also hear of Pelasgi among the inhabitants of Crete.1895, Evelyn Abbott, A History of Greece, G. P. Putnam's Sons, page 27

Proper noun

Pelasgian

  1. The language spoken by the Pelasgians.
    • Pelasgian, therefore, is regarded by him as convertible with Illyrian, and that with Gueg, subject to modifications of Tosk and relations therewith.1869, Journal of the Ethnological Society of London, New Series, Volume 1, Ethnological Society of London, Trübner and Co. page 324
    • […]Malte-Brun described Pelasgian as a primitive version of Greek, and distinguished it from Illyrian, which he regarded as a branch of the Thracian language.2002, Noel Malcolm, “Myths of Albanian National Identity”, in Stephanie Schwandner-Sievers, Bernd Jürgen Fischer, editors, Albanian Identities, Indiana University Press, page 76

Adjective

Pelasgian (comparative more Pelasgian, superlative most Pelasgian)

  1. Of or pertaining to the Pelasgians, their culture, etc.
    • The very solemn and ancient observance of her^([Demeter's]) worship in Attica, which was so eminently a Pelasgian state in the time of Homer, entirely accords with the indications of the Homeric text.1858, William Ewart Gladstone, Studies on Homer and the Homeric Age, Volume II, Oxford University Press, page 214
    • Croesus learns that of the Spartans and the Athenians, the one ethnos, the Spartans, was Dorian, the other, the Athenians, was Ionian; the one (obviously Athenians) were Pelasgian of old, the other (the Dorians) were Greek (Hellenikon).2000, Rosalind Thomas, Herodotus in Context, Paperback edition, Cambridge University Press, page 119
    Synonyms:
    Pelasgic

Synonyms of Pelasgian

Forms of Pelasgian

Noun
pluralPelasgians
pluralPelasgi
Adjective
comparativemore Pelasgian
superlativemost Pelasgian

Origin of Pelasgian

From Ancient Greek Πελασγός (Pelasgós) + -ian, presumably based on a Pre-Greek ethnonym. Compare Egyptian pwrꜣsꜣtj, an ethnonym listed as one of the Sea Peoples attacking Egypt around 1190 BCE.

Questions about Pelasgian

What does Pelasgian mean?
Pelasgian means an inhabitant of pre-Hellenic Greece.
What part of speech is Pelasgian?
Pelasgian can be a noun, a proper noun or an adjective.
What is the plural of Pelasgian?
The plural of Pelasgian is Pelasgians.

Words near Pelasgian in the dictionary

  1. pelargonoyl
  2. pelargonoyls
  3. pelarspovirus
  4. pelarspoviruses
  5. Pelasgi
  6. Pelasgian
  7. Pelasgians
  8. Pelasgic
  9. Pelasgoi
  10. Pelasgus
  11. pelau

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: Pelasgian (page history and authors). 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.

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