teutonic

1605, "of or pertaining to the Germanic languages and to peoples or tribes who speak or spoke them," from L. Teutonicus, from Teutones, name of a tribe that inhabited coastal Germany and devastated Gaul 113-101 B.C.E., probably from a P.Gmc. word related to O.H.G. diot "people" (see Dutch), from *teuta, the common PIE word for "people" (cf. Lith. tauto, Osc. touto, O.Ir. tuath, Goth. þiuda, O.E. þeod). Used in Eng. in anthropology to avoid the modern political association of German; but in this anthropoligical sense Fr. uses germanique and Ger. uses germanisch, since neither uses its form of German for the narrower national meaning (cf. Fr. allemand, see Alemanni; and Ger. deutsch). The Teutonic Knights (founded c.1191) were a military order of Ger. knights formed for service in the Holy Land, later crusading in Prussia and Lithuania. The Teutonic cross (1882) was the badge of the order. Teuton "a German" is attested from 1833.