a. [f. L. tribu-s TRIBE + -AL: cf. gradu-al, manu-al. (L. had in this sense tribuārius.)] Of, belonging or pertaining to a tribe; tribal.
1650. Fuller, Pisgah, II. x. 207. The first tribuall defection to idolatry Dan was guilty of. Ibid. (a. 1661), Worthies, Leicester. (1662), II. 126. The Tribual Lisping of the Ephramites.
1817. G. S. Faber, Eight Dissert. (1845), I. 229. We are apt to fancy, that this extraordinary people have no tribual distinctions among themselves.
1822–34. Good’s Study Med. (ed. 4), IV. 268. It would … have been a much greater improvement … to have employed hydrops as a generic, instead of hydropes as a tribual or family name.
1881. Bentham, in Jrnl. Linn. Soc., XVIII. 287. Observations on the most important tribual and subtribual characters.
Hence Tribually adv., by tribes, tribally.
1817. G. S. Faber, Eight Dissert. (1845), II. 181. Here, apparently, they were first tribually planted, when Nimrod and his baffled Cuthim migrated from Babel to Ashur.
