Chaldean

Part of speech: noun, adjective

Definitions

1. Of or belonging to ancient Chaldea in Mesopotamia or its people ; a native of that ancient Semitic kingdom ; a follower of the Eastern Catholic church in Iraq ; a learned astrologer of the ancient Near East
2. Relating to the old southern Mesopotamian region of Chaldea or its inhabitants ; one of the ancient Semitic people who lived there ; a believer in the Catholic church that uses the Syriac rite ; a sky-reading sage of antiquity
3. Connected with the ancient Babylonian homeland of Chaldea or its culture ; one who belonged to that old Babylonian nation ; a Catholic who worships in the Eastern Chaldean tradition ; a scholar of the stars and omens in ancient times

Etymology: The Chaldeans were a people of southern Mesopotamia, and their name became a byword for a kind of sorcery. In ancient Greek, "Khaldaios" named the inhabitants of Chaldea, the region around the lower Tigris and Euphrates, and it was the Greeks and Romans who came to use the name for the astrologers and diviners of Babylon. Latin "Chaldaeus" carried that association with it, and the English adjective "Chaldean" descends from it. The word itself is an adjective built on a Latin base, "Chaldaeus," with the suffix "-an," which English took from Old French "-ain" and which in turn goes back to Latin "-anus." That suffix is what turns a place or people into an adjective, so "Chaldean" simply means "of the Chaldeans." The English form was adapted directly from the Latin, so its meaning stayed close to the original ethnic sense even as the Greek and Roman writers had already shifted it toward magic.

Synonyms: astrologer, stargazer, soothsayer