Slang. a person who performs a required task or carries out the instructions of superiors: We have too many chiefs and not enough Indians.
of, relating to, or characteristic of the American Indians or their languages.
of, relating to, or characteristic of India or the East Indies.
Phytogeography. belonging or pertaining to a geographical division comprising India south of the Himalayas, and Pakistan and Sri Lanka.
Because Christopher Columbus mistakenly believed that the Caribbean island on which he had landed was the subcontinent of India, he called the inhabitants Indians. Eventually, that name was applied to almost all the indigenous, non-European inhabitants of North and South America. In modern times Indian may refer to an inhabitant of the subcontinent of India or of the East Indies, to a citizen of the Republic of India, or to a member of an aboriginal American people.
In the 18th century the term American Indian came to be used for the aboriginal inhabitants of the United States and Canada; it now includes the aboriginal peoples of South America as well. (When necessary, further distinctions are made with such terms as North American Indian and South American Indian. ) The terms Amerindian and Amerind subsequently developed in the attempt to reduce ambiguity. For some, especially among North American Indians, the preferred designation is Native American. All these terms appear in edited writing. Whether one or several will gain ascendancy over the others remains to be seen.
The only pre-European inhabitants of North America to whom Indian or other terms using the word Indian are not applied are the Eskimos or Inuit. See Eskimo. See also honest Injun, Indian giver.
Poolaw spent most of his life (1906—84) documenting Indian subjects.
Eid, who teaches Indian law at two law schools and works as an attorney himself, had no idea that it was coming.
Both the Bangalore City Crime Branch and Indian national intelligence officials are after him.
Something like a smile attempted to contract the Indian's features; but the attempt was not a happy one, and stopped at a grimace.
It is accompanied by a Synopsis of Indian Tribes, giving the families and tribes so far as known.
Meaning "one who gives a gift and then asks for it back" first attested 1892.