'Totem' definitions:
Definition of 'totem'
From: WordNet
noun
A clan or tribe identified by their kinship to a common totemic object
noun
Emblem consisting of an object such as an animal or plant; serves as the symbol of a family or clan (especially among American Indians)
Definition of 'Totem'
From: GCIDE
- Totem \To"tem\, n. [Massachusetts Indian wutohtimoin that to which a person or place belongs.]
- 1. A rude picture, as of a bird, beast, or the like, used by the North American Indians as a symbolic designation, as of a family or a clan; also, the object or animal itself, considered as an symbol of the family. [1913 Webster]
- And they painted on the grave posts Of the graves, yet unforgotten, Each his own ancestral totem Each the symbol of his household; Figures of the bear and reindeer, Of the turtle, crane, and beaver. --Longfellow. [1913 Webster]
- The totem, the clan deity, the beast or bird who in some supernatural way attends to the clan and watches over it. --Bagehot. [1913 Webster]
- 2. Anything which serves as a venerated or mystic symbol or emblem. [PJC]
Synonyms of 'totem'
From: Moby Thesaurus
- allegory,
- ancestral spirits,
- angel,
- animal kingdom,
- ashram,
- attendant godling,
- blood,
- body,
- breed,
- brood,
- caste,
- charactery,
- cipher,
- clan,
- class,
- colony,
- commonwealth,
- commune,
- community,
- control,
- conventional symbol,
- daemon,
- deme,
- demon,
- economic class,
- emblem,
- endogamous group,
- extended family,
- fairy godmother,
- familiar,
- familiar spirit,
- family,
- folk,
- genius,
- genius domus,
- genius loci,
- gens,
- good angel,
- good genius,
- guardian,
- guardian angel,
- guardian spirit,
- guide,
- house,
- household gods,
- iconology,
- ideogram,
- invisible helper,
- kind,
- kinship group,
- lares and penates,
- lares compitales,
- lares familiaris,
- lares permarini,
- lares praestites,
- lares viales,
- line,
- lineage,
- logogram,
- logotype,
- love knot,
- manes,
- matriclan,
- ministering angel,
- moiety,
- nation,
- nuclear family,
- numen,
- order,
- patriclan,
- penates,
- people,
- phratria,
- phratry,
- phyle,
- pictogram,
- plant kingdom,
- race,
- sept,
- settlement,
- social class,
- society,
- special providence,
- species,
- stem,
- stirps,
- stock,
- strain,
- subcaste,
- symbol,
- symbolic system,
- symbolism,
- symbolization,
- symbology,
- token,
- totem pole,
- tribe,
- tutelar god,
- tutelary,
- type