Hagarene

Part of speech: noun, adjective

Definitions

1. Relating to or descended from Hagar, the Egyptian servant who bore Abraham's son Ishmael in the Book of Genesis
2. Of or belonging to the people said to descend from Hagar, the handmaid whose son Ishmael was traditionally regarded as an ancestor of the Arabs
3. Describing a person or group traced back to Hagar, the Egyptian woman in the Hebrew Bible who was the mother of Ishmael

Etymology: "Hagarene" names a person descended from Hagar, the Egyptian servant of Abraham in the Book of Genesis. Hagar bore Abraham a son, Ishmael, and in medieval Christian and Jewish tradition the Arabs were regarded as his descendants. The word reached English in Middle English as "Agarene," borrowed from Medieval Latin "Agarēnus," and its form was shaped by the name Hagar plus the suffix "-ene," which is also seen in words like "Galilean" and "Nazarene." The English form "Agarene" appears in the Middle English period, when the word was applied to Muslims and to Arabs generally, and it has a religious and polemical flavour from that time. The Latin root "Agarēnus" itself came through the Greek form of Hagar's name, so the word is a single step removed from the biblical figure. Today it survives mostly in historical and literary writing, where it signals an older Christian way of naming Arabs and Muslims.

Synonyms: Hagarite, Ishmaelite