clan

See also: Clan and član

English

Etymology

Borrowed from Irish clann (“offspring, children of the family”) and Scottish Gaelic clann, both from Old Irish cland, borrowed from Old Welsh plant, itself borrowed from Latin planta (“shoot, offspring”). Doublet of plant and planta.

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation, General American) IPA^(key): /klæn/

  • Audio (US):

    (file)

• (Standard Southern British, Northern England, Scotland, Wales) IPA^(key): /klan/
• (New Zealand) IPA^(key): /klɛn/
• Homophone: Klan
• Rhymes: -æn

Noun

clan (plural clans) (collective)

1. (anthropology) A group of people all descended from a common ancestor, in fact or belief, especially when the exact genealogies are not known.

   Hyponym: descent group

   Coordinate term: lineage

2. (Scotland) A traditional social group of families in the Scottish Highlands having a common hereditary chieftain.
3. Any group defined by family ties with some sort of political unity.

   Holonym: nation

   Coordinate terms: tribe (sometimes holonymous), kindred

   Near-synonym: canton (uncommon outside of certain dialects)

   • 1923, P.G. Wodehouse, The Inimitable Jeeves:

     As a rule, you see, I'm not lugged into Family Rows. On the occasions when Aunt is calling to Aunt like mastodons bellowing across primeval swamps and Uncle James's letter about Cousin Mabel's peculiar behaviour is being shot round the family circle... the clan has a tendency to ignore me.

   1. (Malaysia) traditional main matrilineal subunit of the Minangkabau people (suku) esp. in Negeri Sembilan
4. (video games) A group of players who habitually play on the same team in multiplayer games.
5. A group of badgers.

   Near-synonym: cete

   • 2017, Stephan Price, Thinking Through Badgers‎^[1], Vernon Press, page 246:

     if the clan of badgers next door isn't marking its boundaries

   • 2022, David Macdonald, ‎Chris Newman, The Badgers of Wytham Woods‎^[2]:

     it might support a clan of badgers willing to share, although not necessarily to compromise, their individual food security to gain the advantage of reduced food defence costs.

   • 2019, Prof. Hans Kruuk, The Call of Carnivores‎^[3], Pelagic Publishing:

     One fascinating, but not entirely unexpected, finding from my semi-captive clan of badgers is that any aggression between the individuals builds up to a horrible crescendo if their food gets scarce.

Derived terms

• clan control
• clan endogamy
• clanfellow
• clanless
• clanmate
• clan mate
• clannish
• clannism
• clannist
• clanny
• clansfolk
• clanship
• clansman
• clanspeak
• clansperson
• clanswoman
• interclan
• intraclan
• Klan
• Ku Klux Klan
• matriclan
• multiclan
• Palatkwapi clans
• patriclan
• subclan

Descendants

• → Catalan: clan
• → Danish: klan
• → Dutch: clan
• → French: clan
  • → Turkish: klan
• → Galician: clan
• → German: Clan
• → Italian: clan
• → Norwegian Bokmål: klan
• → Norwegian Nynorsk: klan
• → Polish: klan
• → Russian: клан (klan)
• → Portuguese: clan, clã
• → Spanish: clan
• → Swedish: klan

Translations

group having common ancestor

• Albanian: fis (sq), farefis (sq), farë (sq)
• Altai:

  Northern Altai: ук (uk)

  Southern Altai: ук (uk)

• Arabic: عَشِيرَة (ar) (ʕašīra)
• Armenian: ցեղ (hy) (cʻeġ), տոհմ (hy) (tohm)

  Old Armenian: ցեղ (cʻeł), տոհմ (tohm), զարմ (zarm)

• Avestan: 𐬬𐬍𐬯 (vīs)
• Azerbaijani: qəbilə (az)
• Bashkir: ырыу (ırıw)
• Basque: jas
• Belarusian: клан m (klan), род m (rod)
• Bulgarian: клан (bg) m (klan), род (bg) m (rod)
• Buryat: обог (obog), омог (omog), яһан (jahan)
• Chinese:

  Mandarin: 家族 (zh) (jiāzú), 一族 (zh) (yīzú), 氏族 (zh) (shìzú)

• Chuvash: йӑх (jăh)
• Comorian:

  Ngazidja Comorian: mɓa class 9/10

• Czech: klan m, rod (cs) m
• Danish: klan (da) c
• Dutch: clan (nl) m, stam (nl) m, sibbe (nl) f
• Esperanto: klano
• Ewe: please add this translation if you can
• Finnish: klaani (fi)
• Galician: clan m
• Georgian: კლანი (ḳlani)
• German: Clan (de) m, Sippe (de) f
• Hausa: zuriya (ha)
• Hebrew: חמולה (he) f (khamúla)
• Hindi: खानदान (hi) (khāndān), वंश (hi) m (vañś)
• Hungarian: klán (hu)
• Ido: klano (io)
• Indonesian: klan (id)
• Irish: clann (ga) m
• Italian: clan (it) m
• Japanese: 一門 (ja) (いちもん, ichimon), 一族 (ja) (いちぞく, ichizoku), 一家 (ja) (いっか, ikka), クラン (ja) (kuran), 氏族 (ja) (しぞく, shizoku)
• Kazakh: тұқым (tuqım), ру (ruw), ұқ (uq) (Dialect)
• Korean: 씨족(氏族) (ko) (ssijok)
• Kyrgyz: урук (ky) (uruk), уруу (ky) (uruu)
• Latin: familia (la), gens (la)
• Macedonian: клан m (klan), род (mk) m (rod)
• Manchu: ᡶᠠᠯᡤᠠ (falga)
• Māori: hapū, mātāwaka, matawaka
• Marathi: कूळ n (kūḷ)
• Marshallese: bwij, jowi (matrilineal)
• Navajo: dóoneʼé
• Nepali: कुल (ne) (kul)
• Ngarrindjeri: laklinyeri
• Norwegian:

  Bokmål: klan m

  Nynorsk: klan m

• Pashto: خېل (ps) m (xel)
• Persian: ویس (fa) (vis), طایفه (fa) (tâyefe), قبیله (fa) (qabile)

  Old Persian: 𐎻𐎰 (vi-θ /⁠viθ⁠/)

• Polish: klan (pl) m, ród (pl)
• Portuguese: clã (pt) m
• Punjabi:

  Gurmukhi: ਗੋਤ f (got)

  Shahmukhi: گوت f (got)

• Russian: клан (ru) m (klan), род (ru) m (rod)
• Scottish Gaelic: clann f, cinneadh m
• Serbo-Croatian: zadruga (sh) f, rod (sh) m, svojta (sh) f, bratstvo (sh) n
• Slovak: klan m, rod (sk) m
• Slovene: klan (sl) m
• Spanish: clan (es) m
• Sranan Tongo: lo
• Swedish: klan (sv) c, stam (sv) c
• Tagalog: angkan
• Tajik: қабила (qabila), қавм (qavm)
• Tashelhit: afus m
• Thai: โคตร (th) (kôot)
• Tocharian B: kottär
• Tok Pisin: pisin (tpi)
• Turkish: kabile (tr), boy (tr)
• Turkmen: urug
• Ugaritic: 𐎜𐎎𐎚 (ủmt)
• Ukrainian: рід m (rid), клан m (klan)
• Uzbek: urugʻ (uz)
• Vietnamese: thị tộc (vi)
• Volapük: dafamül
• Welsh: clan m, claniau m pl
• Western Yugur: oruɣ
• Yakut: уус (uus), аҕа ууһа (aɣa uuha), ийэ ууһа (iye uuha)

group of relatives with some degree of political organization

• Buryat: отог (otog)
• Danish: klan (da) c

group of players who habitually play on the same team in multiplayer games

• Czech: klan m
• Marathi: क्लॅन f (klĕn)
• Polish: klan (pl) m
• Portuguese: clã (pt) m
• Russian: клан (ru) m (klan)

See also

• clan lab

Anagrams

• Lanc, NLCA, NaCl

Catalan

Etymology

Borrowed from English clan, from Irish and Scottish Gaelic clann.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): (Northern, Balearic, Central, Valencia, Northwestern) [ˈklan]

Noun

clan m (plural clans)

1. clan
2. (figurative) faction
3. (video games) guild

   Synonym: escamot

Derived terms

• clànic

Further reading

• “clan”, in Gran Diccionari de la Llengua Catalana, Grup Enciclopèdia Catalana, 2026

Dutch

Etymology

Borrowed from English clan, from Scottish Gaelic clann (“progeny, race”), from Old Irish cland, from Old Welsh plant, from Latin planta (“shoot, offspring”). As such, it is a doublet of plant (“plant, flora”).

Pronunciation

• (Netherlands) IPA^(key): /klɛn/

• Audio:

  (file)

• Hyphenation: clan
• Rhymes: -ɛn

Noun

clan m (plural clans, diminutive clannetje n)

1. clan, kin group, esp. in relation to the Scottish Highlands or Scotland in general
2. (gaming) a group of gamers playing on the same team, a clan

Descendants

• Afrikaans: clan
• → Indonesian: klan

French

Etymology

Borrowed from English clan, from Scottish Gaelic clann (“progeny, race”), from Old Irish cland, from Old Welsh plant, from Latin planta (“shoot, offspring”), and therefore a doublet of plante.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /klɑ̃/

• Audio (France (Vosges)):

  (file)

Noun

clan m (plural clans)

1. clan

Descendants

• → Turkish: klan

Further reading

• “clan”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012

Galician

Etymology

from Irish clann (“offspring, children of the family”) and Scottish Gaelic clann, both from Old Irish cland, borrowed from Old Welsh plant, itself borrowed from Latin planta (“shoot, offspring”). Doublet of planta.

Noun

clan m (plural clans)

1. clan

   Synonym: tribo

Italian

Etymology

Unadapted borrowing from English clan. Ultimately a doublet of pianta.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈklan/, /ˈklɛn/
• Rhymes: -an, -ɛn
• Hyphenation: clàn

Noun

clan m (invariable)

1. clan
2. team
3. gang

Portuguese

Noun

clan m (plural clans)

1. alternative spelling of clã

Romanian

Etymology

Borrowed from French clan.

Noun

clan n (plural clanuri)

1. clan

Declension

	singular		plural
	indefinite	definite	indefinite	definite
nominative-accusative	clan	clanul	clanuri	clanurile
genitive-dative	clan	clanului	clanuri	clanurilor
vocative	clanule		clanurilor

Spanish

Etymology

Etymology tree

Proto-Indo-European *pleth₂-?

Proto-Indo-European *pel-?

Proto-Indo-European *pleh₂-der.

Proto-Indo-European *pléh₂-n̥t-eh₂

Proto-Italic *plāntā?

Proto-Indo-European *pleh₂k-der.

Proto-Indo-European *pl̥h₂nk / *gteh₂

Proto-Italic *plānktā

Latin plantabor.

Old Welsh plantbor.

Old Irish cland

Middle Irish clann

Irish clannbor.

▲

Middle Irish clann

Scottish Gaelic clannbor.

English clanbor.

Spanish clan

Borrowed from English clan.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈklan/ [ˈklãn]
• Rhymes: -an
• Syllabification: clan

Noun

clan m (plural clanes)

1. clan

Further reading

• “clan”, in Diccionario de la lengua española [Dictionary of the Spanish Language] (in Spanish), online version 23.8.1, Royal Spanish Academy [Spanish: Real Academia Española], 15 December 2025