Argentinian

How to spell argentinian

11 letters · 5 syllables

How to pronounce argentinian

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does argentinian mean?

1. adjectiveRelating to Argentina, its people, or its culture.
2. nounA person from Argentina or a citizen of Argentina.

Argentinian in a sentence

• adjective

  The restaurant serves traditional argentinian beef cooked over an open flame.

• noun

  As a proud argentinian, he flew the national flag during the match.

• adjective

  She studied argentinian history during her year abroad in Buenos Aires.

• noun

  Every argentinian at the conference spoke warmly about their home city.

Where does argentinian come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word is built on the name of the country Argentina, which itself traces back to the Latin argentum, meaning 'silver'. Early European explorers and settlers around the great river estuary of the Río de la Plata (literally the 'River of Silver') believed the region held vast silver wealth, and the Latin-flavoured name Argentina, 'land of silver', took hold by the sixteenth century. English added the familiar suffix -ian, the same ending seen in 'Italian' and 'Canadian', to form an adjective and a noun for the people and things of that nation. The silver connection survives in plain sight: the chemical symbol for silver, Ag, comes from that very same argentum. Knowing the root is argentum, not 'argen-tine', helps fix the spelling, since the tricky part is the run of unstressed vowels in the middle, argen-TIN-i-an.

How the word is built

• argentin- (from Argentina, the country, ultimately Latin argentum 'silver')
• -ian (adjective/noun suffix meaning 'belonging to')