A branch of a family or clan, especially in Ireland and Scotland, or a division of a Native American tribe.
From Latin 'saeptum' (enclosure, clan) or possibly from 'sept' as a shortened form of 'septem' (seven), though the Irish connection suggests it comes from Gaelic origins. The word appears in English colonial documents from Ireland.
The word 'sept' reveals how English borrowed Irish social structures into its vocabulary—when English colonizers encountered Irish clan systems, they had no word for it, so they took the Irish term and it stuck!
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