Vol. 09 · Loanwords ·Indigenous languages ·1630s
Skunk
from seganku
- Meaning
- A small striped mammal famous for its chemical defence.
- Source word
- seganku
- Route into English
- Abenaki *seganku* → English via 17th-century New England. The slang sense ("to skunk someone" in a game) comes from the card game of the same name and is an American development.
- Arrived
- 1630s
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.
Browse the full loanword atlas or explore another source language.