Tuareg

noun

Tua·​reg ˈtwä-ˌreg 

variants or less commonly Touareg

plural Tuareg or Tuaregs also Touareg or Touaregs

: a member of a nomadic people of the central and western Sahara and along the middle Niger from Tombouctou to Nigeria

Word History

Etymology

borrowed from North African Bedouin Arabic ṭwārəg, plural of ṭārgi, perhaps an adjective derivative from "Targa," alleged to be a Berber name for Fezzan, region of southwest Libya

Note: This etymology is from the article Ṭawāiḳ by the Berber and Tuareg specialist Karl-Gustav Prasse in Encyclopaedia of Islam, 2nd edition. A similar origin is suggested by Heinrich Barth in Reisen und Entdeckungen in Nord- und Central-Afrika in den Jahren 1849 bis 1855, Band 1 (Gotha, 1857), p. 246.

First Known Use

1821, in the meaning defined above

Kids Definition

Tuareg

noun

Tua·​reg ˈtwä-ˌreg 

plural Tuareg or Tuaregs

: a member of a nomadic people of Africa