Serb

How to spell serb

4 letters · 1 syllable

How to pronounce serb

What does serb mean?

1. nounA native or inhabitant of Serbia, or a person of Serbian ethnic descent.

Serb in a sentence

• The visiting serb explained how the holidays are marked back home in Belgrade.

• Every serb at the cultural festival wore traditional embroidered dress.

Where does serb come from?

Language of origin: Other

This word names a member of the Serbian people and comes ultimately from the South Slavic self-designation, in Serbian 'Srbin', plural 'Srbi'. The deeper origin of the name is debated among scholars, but it is usually traced to an old Slavic root that may have carried the sense of 'kinsman' or 'one of the same family or alliance', linking it to ideas of shared kinship and tribal bonds. English picked up the form 'Serb' largely in the nineteenth century as the Balkan states gained prominence in European affairs and newspapers, with the spelling smoothed to fit English habits by dropping the Slavic inflections. The related adjective 'Serbian' and the country name 'Serbia' grew from the same stem, which is why all three share the recognisable 'serb' core. Because the root is genuinely ancient and contested, the precise original meaning cannot be stated with full certainty.

How the word is built

• serb (single root; an ethnonym naming a member of the Serbian people, with no separable prefix or suffix)