endogamous

American  

[en-dog-uh-muhs] / ɛnˈdɒg ə məs /

Sometimes endogamic

adjective

1. of or relating to the practice of allowing marriage only within a specific tribe, caste, ethnic or religious group, or other social unit.

   The Bosnian War restricted social relations between different ethnic groups, intensifying endogamous practices in some villages.

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Etymology

Origin of endogamous

First recorded in 1860–65; endo- ( def. ) + -gamous ( def. ); coined in by Scottish anthropologist and ethnologist John Ferguson McLennan (1827–1881)

Example Sentences

Its tech talent and endogamous cohorts make it unique.

From The Wall Street Journal • Mar. 12, 2026

In endogamous populations, such variants can occur 100 to 1,000 times as often as in more outbred populations, shortening the time and cost required to find them.

From The Wall Street Journal • Mar. 12, 2026

This, he said, was also "the secret of endogamous marriage".

From BBC • Jun. 15, 2016

McLennan calls the first exogamous, the second endogamous, and construes forthwith a rigid contrast between exogamous and endogamous "tribes."

From The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State by Engels, Friedrich

We must be careful, too, to discriminate between the tribe and the clan, or gens, for all savage tribes are exogamous with respect to the clans and endogamous with respect to the tribes.

From Oriental Women by Pollard, Edward Bagby