This gentlic adjective (used as a substantive) designates an ethnic group, the Avvites. Joshua 13:3 lists them among Canaanite peoples in Philistine territory whom Israel did not dispossess. 2 Kings 17:31 identifies Avvites among the foreign groups resettled in Samaria by Assyria, who brought their gods (Nibhaz and Tartak) with them. The term marks a distinct people group, though their exact identity and origins remain somewhat obscure. They represent the incomplete conquest and later syncretistic threats to Israel's covenant purity.