Adjective

Semitic (not comparable)

Positive Semitic

Comparative not comparable

Superlative none (absolute)

1. Of or pertaining to a subdivision of Afro-Asiatic Semitic languages: Amharic, Arabic, Aramaic, Syriac, Akkadian, Hebrew, Maltese, Tigrigna, Phoenician etc.
2. Of or pertaining to the Semites: Semitic people.
3. (Biblical) Of or pertaining to the descendants of Shem, the eldest of three sons of Noah.
4. In a stricter sense, of or pertaining to the Israeli, Jewish, or Hebrew people.

Alternative spellings

• semitic

Noun

Singular Semitic

Plural uncountable

Semitic (uncountable)

1. The Semitic languages in general.

In linguistics and ethnology, Semitic (from the Biblical "Shem", Hebrew: שם, translated as "name", Arabic: ساميّ) was first used to refer to a language family of largely Middle Eastern origin, now called the Semitic languages. This family includes the ancient and modern forms of Akkadian, Amharic, Arabic, Aramaic, Ge'ez, Hebrew, Maltese, Phoenician, Tigre and Tigrinya among others.

As language studies are interwoven with cultural studies, the term also came to describe the extended cultures and ethnicities, as well as the history of these varied peoples as associated by close geographic and linguistic distribution.