Skip to main content
Glite Dictionary
👤 Ancient Moab person 🏺 From ancient Moab 📜 An old language
Moabite

Moabite

1 9.9
An old language once spoken by people in ancient Moab
  • noun
  • /ˈmoʊəˌbaɪt/
  • Literature
: idioma moabita
  • Archaeologists discovered inscriptions in the Moabite language during their excavation.

Examples

  • Many scholars study the Moabite language to understand ancient Semitic cultures.

  • The Moabite language was once used by the people living east of the Dead Sea.

  • And he went forth and smote the moabites and the ammonites and the edomites and put them all to the sword.

    King David (1985)

Surface Forms

Moabite singular
Moabites plural

Morphology

Moabite = Moab (semi-transparent) = Moab + ite

Derived from the place name plus the productive suffix '-ite' for languages/people, but a learner must know 'Moab' to infer the referent.

Etymology

Moabite as a language takes its name from the kingdom of Moab, and it was an old language related to Hebrew. So when you see Moabite on an inscription, it means the words were written by the people of Moab.