ethnic

adj

1. Of or relating to a group of people having common racial, ancestral, national, religious or cultural origins.

   “The violence began when Serbian troops went into Croatia ostensibly to aid armed ethnic Serbians trying to create their own autonomous states there.”

   “Studies also show that absentee ballots cast by voters who are younger or from racial and ethnic minority groups are rejected at higher rates than other absentee ballots.”

2. Characteristic of a foreign or a minority group's culture.

   “I like to eat ethnic food”

3. Representative of a folk or traditional mode of expression.

   “Indeed, such ethnic music festivals were probably common throughout the country”

   “contemporary artists are victims of the dichotomization of fine art and folk or ethnic art, where the latter must evince standardized techniques of simplicity, naivete, naturalism, and exoticism.”

   “popular music is usually positioned between classical music on the one hand and folk or ethnic music on the other.”

   “Once you dig below the surface you discover folk, grassroots, and ethnic music throughout the United States”

4. (historical)Heathen, not Jewish, Christian, or Muslim.

noun

1. An ethnic person, especially a foreigner or member of an immigrant community.
2. (archaic)A heathen, a pagan.

   “..for the learned know that even in St. Jerome's time, the consul of Rome and his wife were both Ethnics, and about the same time the greatest part of the senate also...”

   “...And the people of God, redeemed and washed with Christ's blood, and dignified with so many glorious titles of saints and sons in the Gospel, are now no better reputed than impure ethnics and lay dogs...”

3. The demonym of an Ancient Greek city.

   “Coinage with the ethnic ΑΝΤΙΟΧΕΩΝ ΠΡΟΣ ΕΥΦΡΑΤΗΝ survives from the mid-second century A.D.”