Pertaining to or originating in the Basque country.

1. A member of a people of unknown origin living in the western Pyrenees in France and Spain.
2. The language of the Basque people; of no known relation to any other language.
Member of a people inhabiting the Basque Country of central N Spain and the extreme SW of France. The Basques are a pre-Indo-European people who largely maintained their independence until the 19th century. During the Spanish Civil War 1936–39, they were on the republican side defeated by Franco. Their language (Euskara) is unrelated to any other language. The Basque separatist movement ETA (Euskadi ta Askatasuna, “Basque Nation and Liberty”) and the French organization Iparretarrak (“ETA fighters from the North Side”) have engaged in guerrilla activity from 1968 in an attempt to secure a united Basque state.
The Basques have been a distinct population for at least 18,000 years. They are genetically distinct from all other Europeans. They have the highest frequency of rhesus negative individuals (see rhesus factor) and a low frequency of the B gene in the ABO blood group system.