Afer

From a Punic or a Berber term for the country in which the city of Carthage was located. It is possibly derived from an ethnonym, a name of an indigenous tribe encountered by the Phoenician colonists, or perhaps related to Punic 𐤏𐤐𐤓 (ʿpr /⁠ʿafar⁠/, “dust”) akin to Biblical Hebrew עָפָר (ʿāp̄ār, “dust”), or alternatively from a Berber language ⵉⴼⵔⵉ (ifri, “cave”), denoting cave dwellers. Flavius Josephus derived the ethnonym from the name of Abraham's grandson, Epher. The name is perhaps related to the tribal name Ifran recorded by medieval Arab authors.

• (Classical Latin) IPA^(key): [ˈaː.fɛr]
• (modern Italianate Ecclesiastical) IPA^(key): [ˈaː.fer]

Āfer (feminine Āfra, neuter Āfrum); first/second-declension adjective (nominative masculine singular in -er)

1. from Africa (the region of modern-day Tunisia)

First/second-declension adjective (nominative masculine singular in -er).

Āfer m (genitive Āfrī); second declension

1. (Roman Republic) a Carthaginian
2. (Roman Empire) cognomen applied to a native of the province of Africa:
   1. Publius Terentius Afer, a Roman playwright

Second-declension noun (nominative singular in -er).

• āfricus
• āfricānus
• Āfrica

• “Afer”, in Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879) A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
• “Afer”, in Charlton T. Lewis (1891) An Elementary Latin Dictionary, New York: Harper & Brothers
• Afer in Gaffiot, Félix (1934) Dictionnaire illustré latin-français, Hachette.