Aryan

Meanings

1. A member of a race defined variously as comprising people of Germanic descent, in the narrowest sense, or all non-Jewish Caucasians, in the broadest sense
2. A person of Caucasian (white / Northern European) ethnicity; a white non-Jew.
3. A Caucasian racist, often one who is an Aryan in the first sense.
4. An Indo-European, a Proto-Indo-European.
5. An Indo-Iranian.
6. An Indo-Aryan.
7. A subdivision of the Caucasian racial and linguistic grouping, when that grouping is defined as consisting of Aryans, Semites, and Hamites.

1. Pertaining, in racial theories, to the (alleged) Aryan master race.
2. Pertaining to the Caucasian ethnicity.
3. Pertaining to Caucasian racists or their organisations, theories, etc.
4. Of or pertaining to Indo-Iranian peoples, cultures, and languages.
5. Of or pertaining to Indo-European peoples, cultures and languages.

1. The language of the original Aryans.
2. A male given name of Indian usage.

Etymology

Apparently originally from Classical Latin Ariānus, from Ariāna, probably after German Arier, arisch and subsequently reinforced by related Sanskrit आर्य (ā́rya, “noble; noble one”) and + -n. The Sanskrit word is from Proto-Indo-Iranian *áryas (the original Indo-Iranian autonym). Borrowed into English in the 19th century, at first as a term for the Indo-Iranian languages, and later partly extended to the Indo-European languages and peoples following a theory by Friedrich Schlegel that connected the Indo-Iranian words arya/ā́rya with German Ehre (“honor”) and some older Germanic names, thus assuming that it was the original Indo-European autonym meaning "the honorable people". The original meaning of the Indo-Iranian autonym and its possible Indo-European origin/cognates are disputed (see the Wikipedia article for further details). The same Proto-Indo-Iranian root is the ultimate source of the country name Iran.