noun

• 1A member of a people having no permanent abode, and who travel from place to place to find fresh pasture for their livestock.

  ‘the withering of their grasslands forced the nomads of the Sahara to descend into the Nile valley’

  More example sentences

  • ‘the nomads who roam the borderlands of Afghanistan’
  • ‘the Magyars were a nomad people of the steppes’
  • ‘The Touareg people are nomads who traveled through the desert.’
  • ‘These people are the original nomads of North Africa, who were converted to Islam by invading Arab armies eons ago.’
  • ‘Local nomads reported the animals were sensitive to human presence and could be aggressive.’
  • ‘The nomads bring their animals here to the town of InGall in Niger to feed on grass which is rich in salt minerals, believing that the practice fortifies the animals.’
  • ‘Actually, however, its roots go back deeper to an ethnic dispute and power struggle between African farmers and Arab nomads over water and land rights.’
  • ‘For centuries, there has been conflict between settled Black African farmers and Arab nomads.’
  • ‘It is an ongoing dispute between Arab nomads and African farmers which has recently been politicised.’
  • ‘Darfur, on the border with Chad and Central Africa, is home to some 80 tribes and ethnic groups divided between nomads of Arab origin and farmers of African origin.’
  • ‘The interaction between the Eurasian pastoral nomads and the surrounding sedentary societies is a major theme in world history.’
  • ‘Devaji's family, like other Marwari nomads, has travelled all over the country before reaching the city five years ago.’
  • ‘Over the past two decades, the traditional balance between largely Arab nomads and mainly African farmers has broken down.’
  • ‘As I travelled with the nomads and researched about them I found that nomadism was more than just being on the move.’
  • ‘Since the Kazaks were nomads, during the 1800s it was possible for large numbers of Slavic settlers to move into and seize the land inhabited by the Kazaks.’
  • ‘There are about two million nomads in Afghanistan.’
  • ‘These events have transformed the usually stable Karens into terrified nomads and have turned many into stubborn rebel fighters.’
  • ‘Baluchi nomads live in tents made of palm matting stretched on poles.’
  • ‘Political tensions exist between sedentary peoples and nomads.’
  • ‘Although they were originally nomads, most Uzbeks have been settled for more than three hundred years.’
  • ‘Among nomads, women make tents and have more freedom of movement.’
  • ‘The Germanic tribes were not nomads, they were farmers.’

  Synonyms

  itinerant, traveller, migrant, wanderer, wayfarer, roamer, rover, gypsy, Bedouin

  View synonyms

  1. 1.1A person who does not stay long in the same place; a wanderer.
     ‘Dolly was a nomad who had finally taken root in Hawaii’
     More example sentences

     • ‘He's a nomad, never staying in one place too long.’
     • ‘He was, in truth, a nomad, a rootless wanderer, trailing from one country to another and one place to another, varying longer stays with many restless shorter travels, living alone except when visiting or journeying with friends.’
     • ‘How long will she remain a wanderer, a nomad, with no place to go?’
     • ‘He remained a nomad, a figure displaced by the historical tragedies of the last century, an émigré.’
     • ‘Asher has never stayed in one place for long; he is a nomad, and he remembers it well.’