sb. and a. Also 6 -ien. [a. F. barbarien (16th c.), f. F. barbarie or L. barbaria (see BARBARY), on L. type *barbariānus; cf. OF. chrestien:—L. christiānus. See -AN, -IAN. For sense-development see BARBAROUS.]
A. sb.
1. etymologically, A foreigner, one whose language and customs differ from the speaker’s.
1549. Compl. Scot., xiii. 106. Euere nation reputis vthers nations to be barbariens, quhen there tua natours and complexions ar contrar til vtheris [i.e., each other].
1611. Bible, 1 Cor. xiv. 11. I shall be vnto him that speaketh, a Barbarian, and he that speaketh shal be a Barbarian vnto me.
1827. Hare, Guesses (1859), 325. A barbarian is a person who does not talk as we talk, or dress as we dress, or eat as we eat; in short, who is so audacious as not to follow our practice in all the trivialities of manners.
1862. Macm. Mag., Nov., 58. Ovid … laments that in his exile at Tomi he, the polished citizen, is a barbarian to all his neighbours.
2. Hist. a. One not a Greek. b. One living outside the pale of the Roman empire and its civilization, applied especially to the northern nations that overthrew them. c. One outside the pale of Christian civilization. d. With the Italians of the Renascence: One of a nation outside of Italy.
1604. Shaks., Oth., I. iii. 363. A fraile vow, betwixt an erring Barbarian [cf. sense 5] and a super-subtle Venetian. Ibid. (1607), Cor. III. i. 238. I would they were Barbarians … not Romans.
1628. Hobbes, Thucyd., 9. The Athenians … expecting the coming of the Barbarian.
1660. Stanley, Hist. Philos. (1701), 307/2. Of Men some are Grecians, some Barbarians.
1846. Arnold, Hist. Rome, II. xi. 364. The inhabitants of the left or eastern bank of the Rhone were … no longer to be considered barbarians, but were become Romans both in their customs and in their language.
1863. Mayor, in Ascham’s Scholem., 242. Christoph. Longueil of Malines, the one ‘barbarian’ to whom the Italians allowed the title of ‘Ciceronian.’
3. A rude, wild, uncivilized person.
1613. R. C., Table Alph., Barbarian, a rude person.
1697. Dryden, Virg. Georg., III. 588. Skins of Beasts, the rude Barbarians wear.
1730. Thomson, Autumn, 57. The sad barbarian, roving, mixed With beasts of prey.
1861. Stanley, East. Ch., xii. (1869), 381. The strange barbarian [Peter the Great] sought to evade the eagerness of our national curiosity.
1876. J. H. Newman, Hist. Sk., I. I. i. 12. Nature herself fights, and conquers for the barbarian.
b. Sometimes distinguished from savage (perh. with a glance at 2).
1835. Arnold, Life & Corr. (1844), I. vii. 408. I believe with you that savages could never civilize themselves, but barbarians I think might.
1851. D. Wilson, Preh. Ann., II. III. viii. 487. Still a barbarian, but had ceased to be a savage.
c. Applied by the Chinese contemptuously to foreigners.
1858. in Merc. Mar. Mag., V. 302. The character ‘I’ (‘barbarian’) not to be applied to the British Government, or to British subjects, in any Chinese official document.
4. An uncultured person, or one who has no sympathy with literary culture.
1762. Hume, Hist. Eng. (1806), IV. lxii. 664. Cromwell, though himself a barbarian, was not insensible to literary merit.
1863. trans. Let. Erasmus, in Ascham’s Scholem., 245. At Oxford … when a young scholar … lectured in Greek with much success, a barbarian began in an address to the people to rave against Greek learning.
1873. M. Arnold, Lit. & Dogma, 1. I have myself called our aristocratic class Barbarians which is the contrary of Hellenes … because … for reading and thinking they have in general no great turn.
† 5. A native of Barbary. [See BARBARY.] Obs.
1578. Mascall, Plant. & Graff., Ep. The Greeks for Greeke, the Barbarians for Barbarie, the Italian for Italie.
1583. Plat, New Exper. (1594), 22. The Barbarians doe make a bright and orient crimosin colour therewith uppon leather.
1709. Lond. Gaz., No. 4571/2. The Governor of Otranto marched … against the Barbarians.
† b. A Barbary horse. Obs.
1580. Blundeville, Horsemanship, i. (1609), 4. Those horses which we commonly call Barbarians, do come out of the king of Tunis land.
B. adj.
1. Applied by nations, generally depreciatively, to foreigners; thus at various times and with various speakers or writers: non-Hellenic, non-Roman (most usual), non-Christian.
1549. Compl. Scot. (1801), 259. Mair lyik til barbarien pepil, nor … to cristyn pepil.
1606. Shaks., Tr. & Cr., II. i. 51. Bought and solde … like a Barbarian slaue.
1715. Pope, Mor. Ess., V. 13. Barbarian blindness, Christian zeal conspire.
1817. Colebrooke, Algebra, Introd. 82. Several other terms of the art … are not Sanscrit, but, apparently, barbarian.
1847. Hallam, Hist. Lit., I. i. § 1. 2. Establishment of the barbarian nations on the ruins of the Roman empire.
1862. Macm. Mag., Nov., 58. The announcement to one of the comedies of Plautus taken from the Greek, that ‘Philemo wrote what Plautus has adapted to the barbarian tongue’—i. e. Latin.
2. Uncivilized, rude, savage, barbarous.
1591. Spenser, Ruins Rome, 416. Till that Barbarian hands it quite did spill.
1700. Dryden, Cymon & Iph., 125. His broad barbarian sound.
1782. Paine, Lett. Abbé Raynel (1791), 45. This was not the condition of the barbarian world. Then the wants of men were few.
1859. Darwin, Orig. Spec., i. (1873), 13. Geologists believe that barbarian man existed at an enormously remote period.
† 3. Of or belonging to Barbary. Obs.
1577. Harrison, England, II. vii. (1877), 168. The Morisco gowns, the Barbarian sleves.
1605. Play Stucley, in Sch. Shaks. (1878), 254. We mount her back … As we do use to serve Barbarian horse.
1699. in Misc. Cur. (1708), III. 381. The Mauritanian or Barbarian Moor.
