Salish
Americannoun
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a member of any of various North American Indian peoples speaking a Salishan language.
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Also called Montana Salish. Also called Séliš. an Interior Salish language of Montana and Washington spoken by the Flathead, Spokane, and Kalispel peoples.
adjective
noun
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a family of North American Indian languages spoken in the northwestern US and W Canada
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(functioning as plural) the peoples collectively who speak these languages, divided in Canada into the Coast Salish and the Interior Salish
Etymology
Origin of Salish
First recorded in 1840–50; from Southern Interior Salish séʔliš literally, Flathead 1 ( def. ), a self-designation
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
Jordan: Salish, what time would you actually wake up?
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 31, 2026
Salish doesn’t like to repeat outfits on videos, so she does need at least one new outfit a week.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 31, 2026
And they use tools -- research last year showed a critically endangered population of orcas in the Salish Sea breaking off pieces of seaweed to rub and groom each other.
From Barron's ● Jul. 23, 2026
"The lack of justice has sparked this wave of protests," Abu Ahmed Faijul Kabir of the legal rights group Ain o Salish Kendra told AFP.
From Barron's ● May 22, 2026
It was the same technique that the Coast Salish peoples of the Northwest had used for centuries to fashion bentwood boxes out of single planks of cedar.
From "The Boys in the Boat: Nine Americans and Their Epic Quest for Gold at the 1936 Berlin Olympics" by Daniel James Brown
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
