Libyan

From Libya +‎ -an. English since the 16th century.

• enPR: lĭbʹē-ən, IPA^(key): /ˈlɪbi.ən/
• Hyphenation: Lib‧y‧an
• Rhymes: -ɪbiən

Libyan (not comparable)

1. Of, from, or pertaining to Libya.
   • 2020 February 13, Roland Oliphant, “'I have lost four years of my life': the desperate migrants stuck in squalid Libyan camps”, in The Telegraph‎^[1], archived from the original on 8 July 2025:

     More than 40,000 would-be migrants to Europe have been intercepted at sea since Italy began paying and equipping the Libyan coastguard to do so in 2017.

• Libyanness
• Libyanize
• Libyanization

Libyan (plural Libyans)

1. A person from Libya or of Libyan descent.
   • 2005, Jeffrey Tayler, Angry Wind: Through Muslim Black Africa by Truck, Bus, Boat, and Camel:

     No one in Faya forgets that French air force raids drove the Libyans out of Faya, prompting them to abandon their tanks with less than Gaddafian revolutionary zeal and hightail it back home on foot.

   • 2012 January 26, Moni Basu, “Libyans face tough challenges in building a new nation”, in CNN‎^[2]:

     Their frustration has surfaced in protests in several Libyan cities over the last few days, most notably in Benghazi, the seat of the revolution, where Libyans stormed the National Transitional Council building.

Libyan

1. The Libyan Arabic language.

• “Libyan”, in The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, 5th edition, Boston, Mass.: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2016, →ISBN.

• Lybian, bainly, bylina

• IPA^(key): /ˈlibyɑn/, [ˈlibyɑ̝n]
• Rhymes: -ibyɑn
• Syllabification^(key): Li‧by‧an
• Hyphenation^(key): Li‧by‧an

Libyan

1. genitive singular of Libya