Berber

American  

[bur-ber] / ˈbɜr bər /

noun

1. a member of a group of North African tribes living in Barbary and the Sahara.

2. a subfamily of Afro-Asiatic, consisting of the languages of the Berbers, including Tuareg and Kabyle.

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adjective

1. of or relating to the Berbers or their language.

Berber British  

/ ˈbɜːbə /

noun

1. a member of a Caucasoid Muslim people of N Africa

2. the language of this people, forming a subfamily of the Afro-Asiatic family of languages. There are extensive differences between dialects

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adjective

1. of or relating to this people or their language

Etymology

Origin of Berber

1835–45; < Arabic barbar < Greek bárbaros; barbarous

Example Sentences

According to Berber, Natixis’s chief economist, commodity-producing countries with improving market fundamentals, such as Brazil and Mexico, are most likely to weather the war-related volatility well.

From Barron's • Mar. 9, 2026

This week, Berber Jin and Ellen Gamerman report on Anthropic’s 37-year-old resident philosopher, who has been tasked with giving the company’s chatbot a sense of right and wrong.

From The Wall Street Journal • Feb. 13, 2026

Prof Philomena Mwaura, an academic at Kenya's Kenyatta University, told the BBC that Roman Africa was very multicultural, with local Berber and Punic groups, freed slaves and people who had come from Rome found there.

From BBC • Apr. 28, 2025

“I ask myself if Islam is accepted in France,” she said in her parents’ apartment, where a bright orange Berber rug woven by her Moroccan grandmother hangs next to Koranic verses in Arabic.

From Seattle Times • May 22, 2024

They were stopped at the gates by gargantuan Berber guards with scimitars and chased away.

From "Catch-22" by Joseph Heller