Vol. 09 · Loanwords ·Indigenous languages ·1620s
Wigwam
from wikewam
- Meaning
- A domed hut used by some Algonquian peoples.
- Source word
- wikewam
- Route into English
- Eastern Abenaki *wikewam* (their house) → English via 17th-century New England. Sometimes confused with *tepee* (from Lakota *thípi*, a conical tent of different peoples); the two refer to different dwelling types.
- Arrived
- 1620s
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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