Moabite

[ moh-uh-bahyt ]

noun

1. an inhabitant or native of Moab.
2. an extinct language of Moab, in the Canaanite group of Semitic languages.

adjective

1. Also Mo·a·bit·ic [] Mo·a·bit·ish [] of or relating to the ancient kingdom of Moab, its people, or their language.

Moabite

/ ˈməʊəˌbaɪt /

adjective

1. of or relating to Moab, an ancient kingdom east of the Dead Sea, or its inhabitants

noun

1. a native or inhabitant of Moab

Word History and Origins

Origin of Moabite¹

1350–1400; Middle English < Latin Mōabīta < Greek Mōabī́tēs, representing Hebrew mōābī. See Moab, -ite ¹

Example Sentences

The first big prize, discovered in 1868, was the so-called Moabite Stone, a three-foot black basalt stele with a 9th-century BCE, 34-line paleo-Hebrew inscription celebrating the Moabite King Mesha’s rebellion against the Israelites.

From New York Times

The drawings and script charts made by Ginsburg and other scholars who examined the original fragments, Rollston said, show “clear anomalies” in the way the Hebrew letters are formed, compared with authentic script from the period, including that on the Moabite Stone.

From New York Times

In 1873, after Shapira sold a large collection of newly “discovered” Moabite pottery to the German government, Clermont-Ganneau publicly denounced them — correctly — as “false from beginning to end.”

From New York Times

The inscriptions on the altar "are the earliest evidence we have so far for a distinctive Moabite script," Rollston told Live Science, noting that the inscription discovered in 1868 used the Hebrew script to write the Moabite language.

From Fox News

A 2,800-year-old inscribed stone altar, found within a Moabite sanctuary in the ancient city of Ataroth in Jordan, may shed light on an ancient biblical war.

From Fox News