Nabataei

• Nabathaei
• Nabatei

Borrowed from Ancient Greek Ναβαταῖος (Nabataîos), which was borrowed from Nabataean Aramaic 𐢕𐢃𐢋𐢈 (nbṭw). Possibly cognate with Arabic النبطي (an-Nabaṭī, “Nabataean, Nabaṭ”), Arabic أَنْبَاط (ʔanbāṭ), and Hebrew נבטים (nabaṭim, “Nabataeans”), and Hebrew נבטית (nabaṭit, “Nabataean (adj.)”), all of which might be ultimately derived from the same Semitic root, perhaps Proto-Semitic *nabat-, possibly cognate with Akkadian nabāṭu ("to shine brightly").

• (Classical Latin) IPA^(key): [na.baˈtae̯.iː]
• (modern Italianate Ecclesiastical) IPA^(key): [na.baˈtɛː.i]

Nabataeī m pl (genitive Nabataeōrum); second declension

1. The Nabataeans, ancient inhabitants of Nabataea, a region of Arabia that covers parts of northern Arabia and the Southern Levant, lying between Arabia and Syria, and stretching from the Euphrates river to the Red Sea. During the Hellenistic Period, the Nabataeans were involved in a nexus of trade routes reaching as far as Italy to the west and India to the east, which centered at their city of Petra in what is now Western Jordan near the Negev Desert from before 310 BCE until the Roman conquest in 106 CE.
2. (historical) Any of a group of people who once lived around modern Jordan.

Second-declension noun, plural only.

• Nabataeus
• Nabataea

• “Nabataei”, in Gaffiot, Félix (1934), Dictionnaire illustré latin-français, Hachette.
• Nabataei, in ΛΟΓΕΙΟΝ [Logeion] Dictionaries for Ancient Greek and Latin (in English, French, Spanish, German, Dutch and Chinese), University of Chicago, since 2011
  • Search the corpus for this lemma: Nabataeus in PhiloLogic4 concordance (in ancient Greek). ARTFL Project, University of Chicago, viewed December 7, 2025.
• Nabataea (region) on Pleiades.
• “Nabataei”, in William Smith, editor (1854, 1857), A Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography, volume 1 & 2, London: Walton and Maberly