/in"doh yoor'euh pee"euhn/ , n.
1. a large, widespread family of languages, the surviving branches of which include Italic, Slavic, Baltic, Hellenic, Celtic, Germanic, and Indo-Iranian, spoken by about half the world's population: English, Spanish, German, Latin, Greek, Russian, Albanian, Lithuanian, Armenian, Persian, Hindi, and Hittite are all Indo-European languages. Cf. family (def. 14).
2. Proto-Indo-European (def. 1).
3. a member of any of the peoples speaking an Indo-European language.
adj.
4. of or belonging to Indo-European.
5. speaking an Indo-European language: an Indo-European people.
[ 1805-15 ]