Barbarian

[Lat. barbarus, from Gr. barbaros, strange to Greek blood, manners, or language.] ( Hist.) This term was employed by the Greeks in a negative sense, and denoted all persons who were not Greeks. At the same time, as the Greeks made much greater advances in civilization, and were much superior in natural capacity to their neighbors, the word in question obtained an acce ory sense of inferiority both in cultivation and in native faculty. At first the Romans were included among the barbarians: then barbari signified all who were not Romans or Greeks. In the Middle Ages, after the fall of the Western empire, it was applied to the Teutonic races who overran the countries of western Europe, who did not consider it as a term of reproach, since they adopted it themselves, and used it in their own codes of law as an appellation of the Germans as opposed to the Romans. At a later period it was applied, but probably from another derivation, to the Moors, and thus an extensive tract on the north of Africa obtained the name of Barbary. (See BARBARY.) In modern language, B. means a savage; a man in his rude and uncivilized state; also, a cruel, brutal, savage man; one without mercy or humanity. -a. Belonging to savages; rude; uncivilized; cruel; inhuman; as, barbarian treatment.