clan
/klan
/noun
1A close-knit group of interrelated families, especially in the Scottish Highlands: the clan Macleod civil strife has followed as rival clans jockey for power...
- Tartan ties, scarves and even a map of the Scottish clans filled the window of the shop.
- Highland society in general, however, was organized into that most celebrated of Scottish institutions, the clan.
- Let us go back in time where Scottish tartan denoted the clan you belonged too.
1.1A large family: the Watts clan is one of racing’s oldest families...
- Each clan has its own little internal idiosyncrasies.
- The company is owned by the extended Whitaker family, descended from the Johnson and Perrott clans that gave the business its name in 1910.
- At least it has a classic story line - the offspring of two feuding clans falling in love and taking on the world together.
1.2A group of people with a strong common interest: New York’s garrulous clan of artists...
- Often it's a matter of conflicting interests with no resolution at a higher level than the interests - warring clans, greedy industries.
- The clan gather at the pub at 8pm and new members are always made welcome.
- Yes, Elinor is the eccentric one of our little clan.
Synonyms
group, set, circle, clique, coterie, in-crowd, fraternity, brotherhood, community, society;
crowd, band, ring, crew;
faction
informal gang, bunch
rare sodality, confraternity
Derivatives
clanship
- A strong sense of clanship pervaded these villages, making men from other clans feel like interlopers.
- Especially in the province of Moray, there were also feudal groups which adopted clanship.
- But correspondences quickly show through this prose-verse narrative, and the highest ideals of medieval European clanship are exploited in the story to reveal pulp fiction lives familiar as our own.
Origin
Late Middle English: from Scottish Gaelic clann 'offspring, family', from Old Irish cland, from Latin planta 'sprout'.
Clan is from Scottish Gaelic clann ‘offspring, family’, from Old Irish cland, derived from Latin planta ‘sprout’.