1. The Italian name for Rome, the capital city of Italy.
2. A traditionally nomadic people, also known as
Romani, who left the Indian Subcontinent in around the 11th century and migrated to Europe. Nowadays they are found throughout Europe, with especially large populations in
Andalusia, the Balkans and
Central Europe. They have experienced much discrimination (known as
antiziganism) throughout history, and were systematically murdered in the Holocaust alongside Jews. The Roma have their own language, which is more closely related to Hindi and Gujarati than to any European language. The similarity between the names of the Roma and the Romanians is purely coincidental, although there is a large Roma population in Romania. The Roma are sometimes known in English as gypsies, due to a historic belief that the Roma originated in Egypt.
Example:
1. "Roma" is the Italian name for Rome.
2. There are around 650,000 Roma in Spain,
540,000 in Romania, 500,000 in France,
370,000 in Bulgaria and
210,000 in Hungary.