Yugoslav

English

Alternative forms

• Jugoslav (dated)

Etymology

From Serbo-Croatian Jugoslàvēn, influenced by Slav.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈjuːɡəˌslɑːv/

• Audio (Southern England)

  (file)

Adjective

Yugoslav (comparative more Yugoslav, superlative most Yugoslav)

1. (historical) Of, relating to, or characteristic of Yugoslavia or Yugoslavs.

   Synonyms: Yugoslavian, Yugoslavic

   Due to Greek objections, North Macedonia was often referred to as the "former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia" for many years.

   • 1966 March 12, Georgie Anne Geyer, “ Georgie Anne Geyer interviews an ex-Nazi SS officer in exile at Earth’s end”, in Dick Griffin, Rob Warden, editors, Done in a Day: 100 Years of Great Writing from The Chicago Daily News, Chicago, Ill.: The Swallow Press Inc., published 1977, →ISBN, page 435:

     A small band of men, all very Yugoslav-looking, were sitting in the bar, talking politics.

   • 1993, Jacek Kurczewski, “Stalinism as Crime”, in The Resurrection of Rights in Poland, Oxford, Oxon: Clarendon Press, →ISBN, page 34:

     Titoism was a local variety of Stalinism, very Yugoslav in its nature but also very totalitarian.

   • 1998, Anatol Lieven, “Failure of the Serbian Option, 1: The Collapse of the ‘Cossacks’”, in Chechnya: Tombstone of Russian Power, New Haven, Conn., London: Yale University Press, →ISBN, part II (The Russian Defeat), page 229:

     But most alarming at the assembly in Vladikavkaz was the evident hatred of the Chechens, the lurid talk of Chechen atrocities, and of most of Chechnya being ‘ancient Terek Cossack land’, for which ‘we must fight to the last Cossack, after the glorious example of our ancestors’ – all very Yugoslav.

   • 2000, Nicholas G. Procter, “The Experience of Long Distance Devastation: Globalisation of Worry”, in Serbian Australians in the Shadow of the Balkan War, Aldershot, Hants., Burlington, Vt.: Ashgate, →ISBN, page 128:

     Milka also spoke of her sister’s reaction to the collapse of the former Yugoslavia and ongoing media reports of the conflict. The participant’s sister was, before the war: / … very Yugoslav, she adored Yugoslavia and that’s why she’s so hurt.

   • 2002, Stevan K[osta] Pavlowitch, “Serbia in Darkness – The Milošević Years: the 1990s”, in Serbia: The History behind the Name, London: Hurst & Company, →ISBN, page 207:

     In the summer of 1991, in the disputed areas of Croatia, the army vainly searched for an aim to justify its existence. It fought a war against Croatian independentists on behalf of a Serbian ‘Yugoslav’ leadership which had not officially entered a war that was not declared, and allowed outside gangs to do most of the dirty work. It did this allegedly to save Yugoslavia. In the process the very mixed and very Yugoslav town of Vukovar was destroyed before it fell, Dubrovnik was blockaded and shelled, and its surroundings were pillaged by military units and volunteers from Montenegro.

   • 2015, Alen Mattich, The Heart of Hell (a Marko della Torre novel), Toronto, Ont.: Spiderline, House of Anansi Press Inc., →ISBN, page 131:

     “Tm afraid I’m not really one for reading the future in coffee grounds,” she said. “I’m not very Yugoslav. Though I enjoy when other people do it.”

Translations

Noun

Yugoslav (plural Yugoslavs)

1. (historical) A native or inhabitant of Yugoslavia.

   Synonym: Yugoslavian

   He considered himself to be a Yugoslav first and foremost, regardless of his Croat and Serb ancestry.

Translations

Proper noun

Yugoslav

1. (dated, otherwise by extension, nonstandard) Serbo-Croatian
   • 2002, Graeme Mount, chapter 3, in Personal Secretary’s File, Bowers to Welles, 16 March 1942, quoted in Chile and the Nazis, Black Rose Books, →ISBN, page 70:

     He is an educated man, speaking English, French, Spanish, Yugoslav, Russian and German, and he saw service in the Army and understands espionage.

References