User:-sche/English terms of Native American origin

The lists of verified terms have been moved to appendices; click the link below. This list is now a workshop of terms which have not yet been verified. An asterisk next to a spelling indicates I either cannot attest the spelling or doubt that it is normalised; it does not necessarily mean I doubt the existence of the word (in some cases, the word may be attested in that spelling!).

lists

 * Appendix:English terms of Native American origin

cleanup, check etymons
The following already listed words are assumed to be Native American, but no specific etymon is known:


 * Algonquian, language or etymon unclear: pokelogan, macock, maracock, scuppernong, squeteague, suckanhock, togue, wapato; pauhagen, poghaden; chinquapin (chinkapin), chum (fishing sense), werowance, werowansqua.
 * Algonquian, etymon and language known, spelling (of etymon) to be checked: cohosh (🇨🇬 *kkwὰhas), tumpline (from tump (from mattump, metomp?); 🇨🇬 *mádûmbí? 🇨🇬 *mat-a-pey); most 🇨🇬 words.
 * check that this 🇨🇬 word exists: siscowet — 🇨🇬


 * non-Algonquian North American, language or etymon unclear: shallon (🇨🇬, probably from the same root as "salal"); all Chinook Jargon terms listed as such; tupelo and coontie (which are simply 🇨🇬 (Muscogee)); catawba (catalpa; 🇨🇬 (sometimes alternatively said to derive from a 🇨🇬 word like ) ); balché (balche) — 🇨🇬


 * North American, language and etymon unclear: appaloosa (fish), also appaloosa (horse)


 * Caribbean, language or etymon unclear: cay/key (from an 🇨🇬 language), hammock, pawpaw — "Asimina triloba"/"edible fruit of this tree, which has yellow flesh and few black seeds" (???), "caiman/cayman (🇨🇬?), chigoe (🇨🇬/🇨🇬), manatee (🇨🇬/🇨🇬), zaman/zamang (🇨🇬); mangrove; henequen


 * South American, etymon unclear: jararaca (🇨🇬), coati (🇨🇬), ai (🇨🇬), ani (🇨🇬), candiru (🇨🇬), maracuja (🇨🇬), nandu (🇨🇬)

German
FWH: German.—Some of the Indian tongues have special words for 'German.' The Chippewa term is Anima, a modification of the French Allemand, introduced by traders or missionaries. [...] From the French comes also the Micmak Alma. The Sauk and Fox have Tŭch(î|í)a, from 'Dutch.' In Klamath the term for 'German' is Detchmal, while in the Modoc dialect of the Lutuamian stock the name applied to the German settler is muni tchuleks gitko, 'thickset fellow' [...]. A Blackfoot word for 'German' is kistappekwan. The Creek name for a German, according to Adair (Am. Inds., 66, 1775), was yah yah algeh, 'those whose talk was ja ja.'

not listed

 * User:-sche/English dictionary-only terms of Native American origin

Deriving the following terms from Native American languages is unsubstantiated:
 * cushaw (also: cashaw, kershaw) — "crookneck squash, any of several squashes with long, crooked necks, especially Cucurbita mixta" (also: "Virginia (variety of) pumpkin"?) — "alleged AmerInd etymologies unsubstantiated" per
 * qua-bird, quawk (sic) — "American night heron" — (possibly only from its squawk)


 * killhag — (in Maine:) "wooden trap (used by hunters)" — (no etymon is known)
 * 1864, in the Bradford Times; quoted in 1872 in Americanisms; the English of the New world, page 21:
 * The first furs were brought into town yesterday, and already a number of Killhags have been put up everywhere.


 * research these further:
 * chihuahua — "particular small dog" — (from the name of the Mexican state) of unclear origin; perhaps from 🇨🇬
 * marijuana — "cannabis" — (from Mexican 🇨🇬 marihuana, mariguana, of unknown origin; some authorities suggest 🇨🇬 as a possibility}
 * caucus — "meeting, especially a preliminary meeting, of persons belonging to a party, to nominate candidates for public office, or to select delegates to a nominating convention, or to confer regarding measures of party policy; a political primary meeting", "grouping of all the members of a legislature from the same party", (as a verb:) "to meet in such a grouping" — perhaps from an eastern North American language; compare "cockarouse"
 * punk — "material used as tinder for lighting fires", "bottom in a male-male sexual relationship", "(member of a) social and musical movement rooted in rebelling against the established order", "juvenile troublemaker" — perhaps from English, , or perhaps from 🇨🇬 (all other senses derive, in any case, by extension of the word for rotten wood to anything worthless)

not yet checked
Attested, possibly Native American words:


 * is this attested?
 * punk — "punkie" (fish)

Probably unattested, definitely Native American words:
 * 'worraneag'; 'wallaneag', 'woolaneag' (Nipmuck) (fisher or pekan; or some quadruped); 'warraneag', 'woollaneag'; 'wailaneag'; 'wullaneg' (all from Abenaki wulanikw)

Check definition and attestation:
 * yori mui, yori muni — "tepary bean" — ?


 * mohaicks, mowesu (which is suckauhock); metauhock (periwinkle, a white-shelled creature?), poquahock/poquauhock (dark-shelled creature?)
 * regarding "suckauhock" : suckampeag is said to be a 🇨🇬 word for "black shells"
 * wampum is said to be made of metauhock : periwinkle (Pyrula); suck- is made of poquahock, poquauhock
 * Long Island was called Sewanhacky (land of sewan) or Mattauwack (according to W. W. Tooker from Meht-anaw-ack, land of periwinkles)


 * (see List of English words from indigenous languages of the Americas)

probably North American

 * orenda


 * cockarouse, cockerouse — "(Virginian Algonquian) leader, counselor, important person" — from Virginian 🇨🇬 (i.e. 🇨🇬) *cawcawwassough ("elder, adviser") (also possibly the source of "caucus"); compare Tapehanek (Tappahannock) / Quioucohanock (Quiyoughcohannock) *kakarusu ("he speaks at some length")
 * "cockarouse" has remained in use post-2000, though it is rare; "cockerouse" seems especially to have acquired the more general meaning "person of quality (or wealth or importance)"


 * kennebunker (or: Kennebunker?) — "valise, container for clothes (taken by lumberjacks into the woods)" — from the placename Kennebunk, from an 🇨🇬 language (two derivations have been suggested: a root meaning "snake" and a root meaning "bay, body of still water")


 * nikie name — "Native American (as opposed to English) name, especially one signifying kinship and/or referring to a larger-than-life ancestor" — ?


 * wahoo — "Acanthocybium solandri, a tropical and subtropical game fish" — ?


 * other spellings of canticoy: cantico, cantica, kantico, kanticoy, kintacoy, kintecaw, kintecoy, kintekaye, kinticka, kantikoy... but many of these may be unattested
 * old entry for cantico: — (still current:) "fun", (obsolete:) "dance party, lively social gathering" — from an 🇨🇬 language; compare 🇨🇬
 * both a noun and a verb, in a variety of spellings and in phrases like "cut a cantico"
 * 1932, Frank H. Stewart, Indians of Southern New Jersey, page 86:
 * for which they returned their thanks and canticoed.
 * last common in the 1870s and 1880s; never common in print as a verb (though the most recent verb citation is from 1932, fifty years later than the noun)


 * squaw bush (or: squawbush) — "Cornus stolonifera", "C. sericea", "C. canadensis" — ?
 * squaw flower (or: squawflower) — "Trillium erectum" — ?


 * canaha — "particular Caddoan rank/office" — presumably 🇨🇬??? or 🇨🇬 or something else?


 * conna — "particular Caddoan rank/office" — presumably 🇨🇬??? or 🇨🇬 or something else?


 * Canadian French words derived from north-of-Mexico languages: assinade, atoca, atosset, attikameg, cazagot, chiben, couac, kakawi, malachigan, maskoutin, mitasse, moniac, moyac, nagane, oka, sasaqua, savoyane.


 * nith-song(s) (p77)


 * chequet — "..." — ?


 * may-pop — (in the southeastern US:) "passion-flower fruit" — ?

Central American or nearby

 * mamey (also: mamee) — (any of three unrelated plants:) "Mammea americana tree", "edible fruit of this tree: mamey apple, mamee apple"; "Magnolia guatemalensis tree"; "Pouteria sapota tree", "edible fruit of this three: mamey sapote" — ?
 * 1998, François Couplan, The encyclopedia of edible plants of North America, page 134:
 * Mammea americana (B 5) Mamey Apple
 * From the West Indian name of the fruit, "mamey."


 * pitaya (also: pitahaya) — "dragon fruit", "any of a few unrelated fruits" — ?

probably Caribbean

 * conima — "gum resin of the [poison hemlock / elemi gum]" — (possibly 🇨🇬)
 * synonyms: (tacamahaca,) hyawa (gum), carana (resin)


 * chicha — "fermented drink, usually made from maize, sometimes from grapes or apples" — (a Haitian language?)

probably South (possibly Central) American

 * other names for chayote (which is already listed): cho-cho, chouchoute, choko, pipinola, güisquil


 * fique — "natural fiber which occurs in the leaves of the plant Furcraea andina" — ?


 * mingaco — "(voluntary) communal labor (planting, harvesting, threshing, winnowing, clearing land, building), which a person invites neighbors to join in, providing food as payment" — 🇨🇬)?
 * ulmene — "(indigenous, Araucanian) leader" — 🇨🇬)?
 * caví, cavi — "lof" (which see) — probably 🇨🇬?


 * soroche — "altitude sickness (as acquired after mountain climbing)" — from 🇨🇬, perhaps originally from a Native American language


 * babaco — "fruit tree, related to the papaya and native to mountainous areas of Ecuador", "fruit of this tree" — ?


 * sajou — "spider monkey or capuchin" — ??? (but this is uncertain!) (related to "sapajou")
 * sapajou — ... — ??? (related to "sajou")


 * abiu — "the tree Pouteria caimito", "the fruit of this tree" — Tupi?
 * jaborandi — "any of several plants" — Tupi?


 * cherimoya, chirimoya — "the fruit of the species Annona cherimola, which tastes like bubblegum or like banana, pineapple, papaya, peach, and strawberry" — ??? (sometimes derivation from 🇨🇬 or another 🇨🇬 term is suggested, but this is just as often doubted)


 * chago — "mauka" (which see) — ???
 * maca — "Andean medicinal herb Lepidium meyenii", "(extract of) the root of this plant" — 🇨🇬?
 * other names for maca: ayak, ayuk, willku, chichira, maka
 * mashua — "perennial Andean plant of the genus Tropaeolum", "edible tuber of this plant" — ???
 * etymologically unrelated to the name of this plant there is a word mashua referring to a boat: "For transport those peoples use a boat, masua, from Swahili mashua, from Hindi-Gujarati machua 'fishing boat', which is derived from Sanskrit mätsya 'fish'."


 * yacón (also: yacon) — "Peruvian ground apple, Smallanthus sonchifolius (synonyms: Polymnia edulis, Polymnia sonchifolia)", "crisp, sweet-tasting tuberous root of this plant (which is suitable for diabetics)" — ??? 🇨🇬???


 * leren — "Calathea allouia, Central American / Caribbean arrowroot" — (via 🇨🇬, from) ???


 * otoy (rare) — "new cocoyam, Xanthosoma saggitifolium" — (via Panama 🇨🇬, from) ???
 * tannia, tannier (uncommon) — "new cocoyam, Xanthosoma saggitifolium" (or sometimes a close relative of it) — ???
 * macabo (rare) — "new cocoyam, Xanthosoma saggitifolium" — ???


 * sieva (bean) — "(small variety of) Lima bean (Phaseolus lunatus)" — ???


 * "wind" sense not attested:
 * puna — "high elevation montane grassland in the southern high Andes" — ???


 * isaño (isanho?)
 * ulluco, melluco


 * malanga — "new cocoyam, Xanthosoma saggitifolium" — (via 🇨🇬, from) ??? (perhaps from the non-Native American 🇨🇬 language)