native-born

adjective

Being a native and inhabitant of the same place; living where one was born.

Similar

Meanings

adjectivenative-born (not comparable)
  1. not comparableBeing a native and inhabitant of the same place; living where one was born.

    Our conversation was entirely in Malay, as that is the official language here, and in fact the mother-tongue and only language of the controlleur, who is a native-born half-breed.

    1869, Alfred Russel Wallace, The Malay Archipelago, volume I, London: Macmillan and Co., page 384
    1 more example

    The native-born and the "naturalised" locomotives have been giving way to the standardised types, of which the L.M.S.R. class "5" 4-6-0 has led the way and has penetrated the furthest.

    1958 July 28, J. P. Wilson, “Scottish Soliloquy”, in Railway Magazine, page 495
  2. not comparableBorn in the country of citizenship.

    “There are a lot of jobs in the US that native-born people don’t want – and foreign-born people are happy to have,” said Stephanie Roth, chief economist at Wolfe Research.

    2025 July 25, Matt Egan, “How Trump’s mass deportations could backfire on the American economy by shrinking paychecks”, in CNN Business
nounnative-born (plural native-borns)

plural native-borns

  1. A person who was born in the country of their citizenship.
  2. A person who was born as a citizen of a specified country.

Synonyms & antonyms

adjectivebelonging to a place by birth

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Also see

Synonym sets from Open English WordNet, CC BY 4.0.

Origin

Translations

Bulgarian местен, туземен
  • местен (mesten)native-born
  • туземен (tuzemen)native-born
Danish indfødt
  • indfødtnative-born
Finnish syntyperäinen
  • syntyperäinennative-born
Icelandic innfæddur
  • innfæddurnative-born
Norwegian Bokmål innfødt
  • innfødtnative-born
Swedish infödd
  • inföddnative-born
Cite this entry
APA

native-born. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 2, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/native-born

MLA

“native-born.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/native-born. Accessed November 2, 2026.

Chicago

WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “native-born,” accessed November 2, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/native-born.

Source: native-born on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.