noun
definition
A clan, tribe, or family, proceeding from a common progenitor (used especially of the ancient clans in Ireland).
definition
An enclosure; a railing.
Examples of septs in a Sentence
This exception was discovered by Messrs Spencer and Gillen among the Arunta of central Australia, some allied septs, and their nearest neighbours to the north, the Kaitish.
At what period the Zulu (one of a number of closely allied septs) first reached the country to which they have given their name is uncertain; they were probably settled in the valley of the White Umfolosi river at the beginning of the 17th century, and they take their name from a chief who flourished about that time.
They have no caste distinctions but speak of themselves as belonging to one of nine septs or clans, who all eat together and intermarry with each other.
At the outbreak of civil war in 1641, a conspiracy of the Irish septs, under the direction of Roger Moore, to seize Dublin Castle, was disclosed by one Owen Connolly on the eve of the day on which the attempt was to have been made, and the city was thus preserved for the king's party; but the Irish outside began an indiscriminate extermination of the Protestant population.
In spite of the incapacity which he displayed in this war, John was sent a little later 'to govern Ireland (1185); but he returned in a few months covered with disgrace, having alienated the loyal chiefs by his childish insolence and entirely failed to defend the settlers from the hostile septs.
There is a division of society into septs or clans, the membership of which constitutes the closest tie.
It was not only by the formation of ever new endogamous castes and sub-castes that the system gained in extent and intricacy, but even more so by the constant subdivision of the castes into numerous exogamous groups or septs, themselves often involving gradations of social status important enough to seriously affect the possibility of intermarriage, already hampered by various other restrictions.
This would naturally lead to an excess of women over men in the higher septs, and would render it difficult for a man to get his daughter respectably married without paying a high price for a suitable bridegroom and incurring other heavy marriage expenses.
Supported by several septs of Munster and Connaught, and assisted also by English contingents and by the MacDonnells of Antrim, O'Neill took the castle of Ballyshannon, and after devastating a large part of Tyrconnel he encamped at Knockavoe, near Strabane.
Since the fall of Ibn Zubair the political position of Mecca 4 For details as to the ancient quarters of Mecca, where the several families or septs lived apart, see Azraqi, 455 pp. seq., and compare Ya`qubi, ed.
They even made a great expedition to Ireland, where Bruces brother Edward was proclaimed king by the rebellious Celtic septs, and rode across the whole island, exterminating the Anglo-Irish population in many districts (1315-1317).
The descendants of Eogan were the O'Neills and their numerous kindred septs; the posterity of Conall Gulban were the O'Donnells and their kindred septs.
The settlers in the Scandinavian towns early came to be looked upon by the native Irish as so many septs of a tribe added to the system of petty states forming the Irish political system.
They soon mixed in the domestic quarrels of neighbouring tribes, at first selling their protection, but afterwards as vassals, sometimes as allies, like the septs and tribes of the Goidel among themselves.
The tuath or territory of a ri (represented roughly by a modern barony) was divided among the septs.
The upper class among them claim to be Rajputs, and are divided into numerous septs.
Every tribe is divided into septs fairly well defined.
Some people, however, belong to a smaller subgroup with a different surname, such groups are known as septs of the clan.