Nomad

How to spell nomad

5 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce nomad

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does nomad mean?

1. nounA person who moves from place to place rather than settling permanently in one home.

Nomad in a sentence

• As a true nomad, she rarely stayed in one city for more than a month.

• The herding nomad followed the rains across the dry plains.

Where does nomad come from?

Language of origin: Greek

The word comes from the Greek nomas, meaning a person who roams in search of pasture for their flocks. That noun grew from the verb nemein, which meant 'to pasture' or 'to graze', and from the related noun nomos for a pasture or grazing district. The Greek word passed into Latin as nomas (with the stem nomad-), and from there into French as nomade, which English adopted in the late 1500s. The original sense was strictly literal: a member of a herding people with no fixed home, moving wherever the grazing was good. Over time the meaning broadened to cover any wanderer, and today it stretches to the 'digital nomad' who works while travelling. The single 'm' and single 'd' are worth fixing in memory, since the word looks as if it might double a consonant but never does.

How the word is built

• nomad (from Greek nomas: one who wanders for pasture, related to nemein: to pasture or graze)