Chaldeans

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. The inhabitants of ancient Chaldea in southern Mesopotamia who rose to power in Babylon ; the priestly scholars and star-watchers of that civilization who were believed to practise divination ; the adherents of the Eastern Catholic church centred in Iraq and surrounding regions
2. A people of southern Mesopotamia who founded the later Babylonian empire ; wise men and astrologers of Babylon famed for reading the heavens and foretelling events ; Eastern Catholic believers belonging to a church based in Iraq
3. The ancient Semitic folk of Chaldea who held power in Babylon ; the learned astrologers and soothsayers associated with that old Mesopotamian culture ; the members of an Eastern-rite Catholic church originating in the Middle East

Etymology: The Chaldeans were a people of southern Mesopotamia, and their name reached English through a chain of Greek and Latin borrowings. The Greek writers who used "Khaldaîos" to describe them were applying it to a people whose own identity was tied to the Babylonian south, and the term became a general label for the Babylonian learned class in classical texts. The Greek word was taken into Latin as "Chaldaeus," and English later adapted that Latin form directly. The English ending is the part that carries the most history. The suffix "-an," which turns a place or people into an adjective or noun ("Roman," "Athenian"), came into English through Old French "-ain," which descended from the Latin "-ānus." Middle English then used it in the same way, so "Chaldean" is a learned formation that merges a Greek ethnic name with a Latin-derived English suffix.