Vol. 09 · Loanwords ·Indigenous languages ·1550s
Hammock
from hamaca
- Meaning
- The Taino name for a hanging bed, woven from tree-bark fibres.
- Source word
- hamaca
- Route into English
- Taino → Spanish *hamaca* → English via Columbus-era travel accounts. Adopted as standard naval shipboard furniture by the Royal Navy around 1600.
- Arrived
- 1550s
From Indigenous languages
A loose group: Nahuatl, Taino, Algonquian, Guugu Yimithirr, and others. Colonial contact produced many loans; the speakers were often systematically dispossessed of the land the loanwords described.
English borrows.
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