Hagarenes

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. Nomadic tribes of ancient northern Arabia who claimed descent from Hagar, the mother of Ishmael, and are named in the Hebrew Bible
2. Ancient desert peoples of the Arabian region traced to Hagar, Abraham's servant, and mentioned in the Old Testament as enemies of Israel
3. Ishmaelite-linked tribes of the Arabian desert, named in biblical texts after Hagar, the Egyptian woman who bore Abraham's son Ishmael

Etymology: "Hagarenes" is the plural of "Hagarene", a word for the Arabs, and its history runs through a biblical figure. In the Book of Genesis, Hagar is the Egyptian servant of Abraham's wife Sarah, and she bears Abraham a son, Ishmael. Medieval writers came to believe that the Arabs descended from Hagar and Abraham, and the name for them was built on her name. The English form came from Middle English "Agarene", which was borrowed from Medieval Latin "Agarēnus". Its structure is simply "Hagar" plus the suffix "-ene", so the word means something like "descendant of Hagar". Because the name was tied to a scriptural lineage rather than to a language or a homeland, it was a religious label as much as an ethnic one.