Aryan

Aryan originally designated speakers of Indo-Iranian languages and, more broadly, the hypothetical Proto-Indo-European peoples.

Nazi ideology corrupted the term into a pseudoscientific racial category denoting supposed Nordic or Germanic racial superiority, used to justify genocide.

This poisoned legacy makes the word radioactive in most contexts today.

White supremacists still use Aryan as a self-descriptor: Aryan Brotherhood, Aryan Nation.

In academic linguistics and archaeology, the term persists narrowly for ancient Indo-Iranian cultures, though scholars often prefer alternatives. (Lowercase aryan is occasionally seen but nonstandard.)