nomadic

UK/nəʊˈmæd.ɪk/US/noʊˈmæd.ɪk/

adjectiveB2+Rare in speech; mostly a word you read · #12,021 of 15,258leans written

Nomadic means moving from place to place rather than settling. A nomadic people, a nomadic life, nomadic herders.

The movement follows pasture and water on a yearly round, so it is a system rather than wandering. Nomadic ways of life are declining nearly everywhere, squeezed by borders and by land being fenced, and several states have tried to settle them by force.

Definitions of nomadic

1adjectivenomadicMoving from place to place rather than settling.B2+
“Nomadic herders move their tents and animals with the seasons.”

nomadic is a way of life.

Where it comes from

Greek nomadikos comes from nomas, one who roams for pasture, from nemein, to pasture.

Proto-Indo-European
*nem-
Ancient Greek
νομαδικός
English, today
nomadic

From Ancient Greek νομαδικός, equivalent to nomad + -ic.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA

Practised in Word Building

Practise this word

nomadic in the wild

For example, many groups living in the tundra are reindeer herders and are semi-nomadic, following forage for their animals.
Nomad
"For the Spanish, the Chichimecas were a wild, nomadic people who lived north of the Valley of Mexico.
Chichimeca
Most of the Moken live a semi-nomadic hunter-gatherer lifestyle heavily based on the sea, though this lifestyle is increasingly under threat.
Moken
New Traveller also refers to those who are not traditionally of an ethnic nomadic group but who have chosen to pursue a nomadic lifestyle.
New Age travellers
Eurasian nomads form groups of nomadic peoples who have lived in various areas of the Eurasian Steppe.
Eurasian nomads

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From Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. These sentences were written by other people about their own subjects; they are here to show the word at work, not as anybody’s opinion.

Related words

nomad

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