word meaning "resident of ..."

Mark Spahn mspahn at LOCALNET.COM
Sun Jan 29 05:20:04 UTC 2006


Place: what a resident/native of that place is called
-----  -------------------------------------
Turkey: Turk
New York: New Yorker
Michigan: Michigander
Armenia: Armenian
Peru: Peruvian
Utah: Utahn
France: Frenchman, -men, Frenchwoman, -men
Zarqa (town in Jordan): Zarqan

What is the generic term for a resident of a place?
I am looking for a term X such that we can say
"The X for Turkey is 'Turk', the X for Liverpool
is 'Liverpudlian'."

I have found two similar terms, but their meanings
do not quite fit:

ethnonym: the name of an ethnic group, e.g., Turks, Arabs

demonym: a name of people that refers to the place
they came from, such as 'the Greek' in "Jimmy the Greek"
or 'al-Zarqawi' in "Abu Musab al-Zarqawi" (Abu Musab
the Zarqan).

Given a word, a dictionary will tell you its meaning,
but my problem is the opposite:  I have a meaning,
and I want to find the word for it (if one exists).

-- Mark Spahn

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The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org



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