A Topical Dictionary: Search for totem

Dictionary Results For "totem" [?]/[OPML]

Ads By Google

Wiktionary Articles [RSS] - [GNU, www.Wiktionary.org]

English

Etymology

Ojibwe odoodeman

Noun

any natural object or living creature that serves as an emblem of a tribe, clan or family
the representation of such object or creature
the clan etc whose kinship is defined in reference to such an object or creature

Translations

Danish: totem
Dutch: totem
Finnish: toteemi
French: totem
German: Totem

Ido: totem
Portuguese: #Portuguese|totem
Slovenian: totem
Spanish: totem
Vietnamese: tô-tem; vật tổ

Derived terms

fr:totem io:totem ku:totem ru:totem sl:totem fi:totem ta:totem vi:totem tr:totem

GNU Project's publication of CIDE, the Collaborative International Dictionary of English Totem \To"tem\, n. [Massachusetts Indian wutohtimoin that to
which a person or place belongs.]
1. A rude picture, as of a bird, beast, or the like, used by
the North American Indians as a symbolic designation, as
of a family or a clan; also, the object or animal itself,
considered as an symbol of the family.
[1913 Webster]

And they painted on the grave posts
Of the graves, yet unforgotten,
Each his own ancestral totem
Each the symbol of his household;
Figures of the bear and reindeer,
Of the turtle, crane, and beaver. --Longfellow.
[1913 Webster]

The totem, the clan deity, the beast or bird who in
some supernatural way attends to the clan and
watches over it. --Bagehot.
[1913 Webster]

2. Anything which serves as a venerated or mystic symbol or
emblem.
[PJC]

WordNet totem
n 1: a clan identified by their kinship to a common totemic
object
2: emblem consisting of an object such as an animal or plant;
serves as the symbol of a family or clan (especially among
American Indians)

Moby Dictionary
allegory , ancestral spirits , angel , animal kingdom , ashram ,
attendant godling , blood , body , breed , brood , caste , charactery ,
cipher , clan , class , colony , commonwealth , commune , community ,
control , conventional symbol , daemon , deme , demon , economic class ,
emblem , endogamous group , extended family , fairy godmother ,
familiar , familiar spirit , family , folk , genius , genius domus ,
genius loci , gens , good angel , good genius , guardian ,
guardian angel , guardian spirit , guide , house , household gods ,
iconology , ideogram , invisible helper , kind , kinship group ,
lares and penates , lares compitales , lares familiaris ,
lares permarini , lares praestites , lares viales , line , lineage ,
logogram , logotype , love knot , manes , matriclan , ministering angel ,
moiety , nation , nuclear family , numen , order , patriclan , penates ,
people , phratria , phratry , phyle , pictogram , plant kingdom , race ,
sept , settlement , social class , society , special providence ,
species , stem , stirps , stock , strain , subcaste , symbol ,
symbolic system , symbolism , symbolization , symbology , token ,
totem pole , tribe , tutelar god , tutelary , type