Cheruscans

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A Germanic tribe that inhabited the region of what is now northwestern Germany during the Roman period
2. Members of an ancient Germanic people who lived east of the Rhine and resisted Roman expansion in the first centuries CE
3. An ethnic group of early Germanic peoples dwelling in central Germany who became known for their conflicts with Rome

Etymology: Few peoples are known to history mainly through a single battle, and the Cherusci are one of them. In 9 CE, their leader Arminius, who had served as an officer in the Roman army, lured three legions under Publius Quinctilius Varus into the Teutoburg Forest and destroyed them. The defeat halted Rome's expansion east of the Rhine. Roman writers such as Tacitus preserved the tribe's name in Latin as "Cherusci." The name itself is harder to pin down. Greek writers gave a form close to "Cheruskoi," and the Latin spelling followed from it. Scholars have proposed Germanic roots linked to words for deer or hart, or possibly to a word for sword, but none of these is certain, so the meaning of the name remains unknown.