List of adjectival and demonymic forms for countries and nations

The following is a list of adjectival forms of countries and nations in English and their demonymic equivalents. A country adjective describes something as being from that country, for example, "Italian cuisine" is "cuisine of Italy". A country demonym denotes the people or the inhabitants of or from there, for example, "Germans" are people of or from Germany. Note: Demonyms are given in plural forms. Singular forms simply remove the final 's' or, in the case of -ese endings, are the same as the plural forms. The ending -men has feminine equivalent -women (e.g. an Irishman and a Scotswoman). The French terminations -ois / ais serve as both the singular and plural masculine; adding 'e' (-oise / aise) makes them singular feminine; 'es' (-oises / aises) makes them plural feminine. The Spanish and Portuguese terminations "-o" usually denotes the masculine and is normally changed to feminine by dropping the "-o" and adding "-a". The plural forms are usually "-os" and "-as" respectively.

Adjectives ending in -ish can be used as collective demonyms (e.g. the English, the Cornish). So can those ending in -ch / -tch (e.g. the French, the Dutch) provided they are pronounced with a 'ch' sound (e.g. the adjective Czech does not qualify).

Many place-name adjectives and many demonyms refer also to various other things, sometimes with and sometimes without one or more additional words. (Sometimes, the use of one or more additional words is optional.) Notable examples are cuisines, cheeses, cat breeds, dog breeds, and horse breeds. (See List of words derived from toponyms.)

Note - in cases where two or more adjectival forms are given, there is often a subtle difference in usage between the two. This is particularly the case with Central Asian countries where one form tends to relate to the nation and the other often relates to the predominant ethnic group (e.g., Uzbek is primarily an ethnicity, Uzbekistani relates to citizens of Uzbekistan).

Table

See also

• Demonym
  • List of adjectival and demonymic forms of place names
    • List of adjectivals and demonyms for astronomical bodies
    • List of adjectivals and demonyms for continental regions
      • List of adjectivals and demonyms for subcontinental regions
    • List of adjectival and demonymic forms for countries and nations
      • List of adjectivals and demonyms for Australia
      • List of adjectivals and demonyms for Canada
      • List of adjectivals and demonyms for India
      • List of adjectivals and demonyms for Malaysia
      • List of adjectivals and demonyms for Mexico
      • List of adjectivals and demonyms for New Zealand
      • List of adjectivals and demonyms for the Philippines
      • List of adjectivals and demonyms for the United States
    • List of adjectivals and demonyms for cities
    • List of adjectivals and demonyms for former regions
      • List of adjectivals and demonyms for Greco-Roman antiquity
    • List of adjectivals and demonyms for fictional regions

References

External links

Look up Appendix:Countries of the world in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

• Alphabetical list of world demonyms
• CIA World Factbook – NATIONALITY
• Demonyms of the World