Tribe vs. Nation — What's the Difference?

The term tribe is used in many different contexts to refer to a category of human social group. The predominant usage of the term is in the discipline of anthropology.

A nation is a community of people formed on the basis of a common language, history, ethnicity, a common culture and, in many cases, a shared territory. A nation is a collective identity of people.

A unit of sociopolitical organization consisting of a number of families, clans, or other groups who share a common ancestry and culture and among whom leadership is typically neither formalized nor permanent.

A relatively large group of people organized under a single, usually independent government; a country.

Any of the three divisions of the ancient Romans, namely, the Latin, Sabine, and Etruscan.

The territory occupied by such a group of people

Any of the 12 divisions of ancient Israel.

The government of a sovereign state.

A phyle of ancient Greece.

A people who share common customs, origins, history, and frequently language; a nationality

A group of people sharing an occupation, interest, or habit

A federation or tribe, especially one composed of Native Americans.

(Informal) A large family.

The territory occupied by such a federation or tribe.

(Biology) A taxonomic category ranking below a family or subfamily and above a genus and usually containing several genera.

A historically constituted, stable community of people, formed based on a common language, territory, economic life, ethnicity and/or psychological make-up manifested in a common culture.

An ethnic group larger than a band or clan (and which may contain clans) but smaller than a nation (and which in turn may be contained within a nation). The tribe is often the basis of ethnic identity.

A sovereign state.

(synecdoche) A tribal nation or people.

An association of students based on its members' birthplace or ethnicity.

(pejorative) A nation or people in an area considered culturally primitive, such as Africa, Australia or Native America.

(obsolete) A great number; a great deal.

A socially cohesive group of people within a society

(rare) Damnation.

(zoology) A group of apes who live and work together.

Extremely, very.

(taxonomy) A hierarchal rank between family and genus.

A part, or division, of the people of the earth, distinguished from the rest by common descent, language, or institutions; a race; a stock.

The collective noun for various animals.

The body of inhabitants of a country, united under an independent government of their own.

(stock breeding) A family of animals descended from some particular female progenitor, through the female line.

Family; lineage.

(transitive) To distribute into tribes or classes; to categorize.

One of the divisions of university students in a classification according to nativity, formerly common in Europe.

A family, race, or series of generations, descending from the same progenitor, and kept distinct, as in the case of the twelve tribes of Israel, descended from the twelve sons of Jacob.

A great number; a great deal; - by way of emphasis; as, a nation of herbs.

A number of species or genera having certain structural characteristics in common; as, a tribe of plants; a tribe of animals.

A politically organized body of people under a single government;

A nation of savages or uncivilized people; a body of rude people united under one leader or government; as, the tribes of the Six Nations; the Seneca tribe.

The people who live in a nation or country;

A division, class, or distinct portion of a people, from whatever cause that distinction may have originated; as, the city of Athens was divided into ten tribes.

A federation of tribes (especially native American tribes);

A family of animals descended from some particular female progenitor, through the female line; as, the Duchess tribe of shorthorns.

United States prohibitionist who raided saloons and destroyed bottles of liquor with a hatchet (1846-1911)

To distribute into tribes or classes.

A social division of (usually preliterate) people

A federation (as of American Indians)

(biology) a taxonomic category between a genus and a subfamily

Group of people related by blood or marriage