Cheruscan

Part of speech: adjective, noun

Definitions

1. A member of a Germanic people who inhabited the region of what is now Germany and fought against Roman expansion in the 1st century AD
2. One of the ancient Germanic tribespeople who lived in central Europe and are known especially for their conflict with Roman forces under Arminius
3. A person belonging to an ancient Germanic tribe that occupied territories in modern-day Germany and resisted Roman conquest during the early imperial period

Etymology: The Cheruscans were a Germanic people who lived in what is now northwestern Germany, east of the Rhine, in the first centuries BCE and CE. Their name appears in Latin sources such as Tacitus and Strabo, and it is the source of the English adjective, which is used for the people and their language or culture. The most famous Cheruscan was Arminius, the leader who in 9 CE united several Germanic tribes and destroyed three Roman legions under Publius Quinctilius Varus in the Teutoburg Forest. Arminius had been raised in Rome and served in the Roman army, which made his betrayal of Varus especially striking to contemporary Roman writers. The Cheruscans therefore appear in history mainly through their wars with Rome. The English word is a borrowing from Latin "Cheruscī," the plural of "Cheruscus," and it is a learned, scholarly term used mostly by historians and classicists rather than in everyday speech.