Skip to main content
PlainSpell

indigenous

in·dig·e·nous/ɪnˈdɪd͡ʒənəs/adjective

indigenous is spelled I-N-D-I-G-E-N-O-U-S, 4 syllables: in·dig·e·nous. The wrong spelling people search most is indigineous: about 60 Bing searches a month in the United States (September 2025 to August 2026), about 1 in 119 of all searches for the word. Indigenous is an adjective meaning “Native to a land, especially before colonization”.

How many letters and syllables are in indigenous?

Letters10: I-N-D-I-G-E-N-O-U-S
Syllables4: in·dig·e·nous
In writing14 times per million words; the 5,496th most frequent word form
Wrong spellings searched1; the most searched, indigineous, about 60 Bing searches a month (all of them)

Sources: letters and syllables from the English Wiktionary's hyphenation or pronunciation; written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media); Bing searches in the United States: the average month from September 2025 to August 2026 (Microsoft Advertising keyword data through DataForSEO, read September 30, 2026).

How do you spell indigenous?

Indigenous is spelled I-N-D-I-G-E-N-O-U-S. One wrong spelling is searched or written often enough to measure; together they are about 1 in 120 of the searches for indigenous in either form.

indigenousthe right spelling7,120 searches a month
indigineousan extra i, e and n swapped60 searches a month

Bing searches in the United States: the average month from September 2025 to August 2026 (Microsoft Advertising keyword data through DataForSEO, read September 30, 2026). Wrong spellings are taken from Wiktionary entries tagged "misspelling" and its obsolete or nonstandard forms, Wikipedia's Lists of common misspellings and the codespell dictionary, then measured. The proofreader's marks show the change that corrects each one.

How common is indigenous?

Indigenous appears 14 times per million words in written English, the 5,496th most frequent word form in the list.

Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).

How do you pronounce indigenous?

  • UK /ɪnˈdɪdʒɪnəs/
  • US /ɪnˈdɪd͡ʒənəs/
  • US /ɪnˈdɪd͡ʒɪnəs/

Indigenous has 4 syllables, split in·dig·e·nous in writing.

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Recordings: En-au-indigenous.ogg, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).

What does indigenous mean?

The meanings the English Wiktionary records, quoted as written there (source below).

adjective

  1. 1

    Native to a land, especially before colonization.

    The Aboriginals were indigenous to Victoria before the World War.

  2. 2

    In particular, of or relating to a people (or their language or culture) that inhabited a region prior to the arrival of people of other cultures which became dominant (e.g., through colonialism), and which maintains a distinct culture.

    The Ainu are the indigenous ethnic group of Japan's Hokkaido Island.

  3. 3

    Innate, inborn.

  4. 4

    Original to a geographical area.

    That style of pottery is indigenous to that region.

adjective

as Indigenous
  1. 1

    Alternative letter-case form of indigenous (“native, relating to the native inhabitants of a land”).

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).

How do you abbreviate indigenous?

Wiktionary records one abbreviation of indigenous: ind..

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).

Indigenous in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese

LanguageWords
Frenchindigène, aborigène, autochtone (born or engendered in, native to a land or…), inné, congénital (innate, inborn)
Germanindigen, einheimisch, eingeboren, inländisch (born or engendered in, native to a land or…), angeboren, intuitiv (innate, inborn)
Portugueseindígena, nativo, aborígene, aborígine (born or engendered in, native to a land or…), nato (innate, inborn)
Spanishindígena (born or engendered in, native to a land or…)

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Translations are Wiktionary's, by sense; a linked word has its own PlainSpell page.

Where does indigenous come from?

Borrowed from Late Latin indigenus (“native, born in a country”), from indi- (indu-), an old derivative of in (“in”), gen- the root of gignō (“give birth to”), and English -ous. Compare indigene, Ancient Greek ἐνδογενής (endogenḗs, “born in the house”), and the separately formed piecewise doublet endogenous. Unrelated to Indian.

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).

What to look up after indigenous