barbarousadj.

Etymology: < Latin barbarus, < Greek βάρβαρος + -ous suffix: preceded in use by the simple barbar n., without suffix. The Greek word had probably a primary reference to speech, and is compared with Latin balbus stammering. The sense-development in ancient times was (with the Greeks) ‘foreign, non-Hellenic,’ later ‘outlandish, rude, brutal’; (with the Romans) ‘not Latin nor Greek,’ then ‘pertaining to those outside the Roman empire’; hence ‘uncivilized, uncultured,’ and later ‘non-Christian,’ whence ‘Saracen, heathen’; and generally ‘savage, rude, savagely cruel, inhuman.’ The later uses occur first in English, the Latin and Greek senses appearing only in translators or historians.