Inuit
Americannoun
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Inuits,
plural
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Inuit
plural
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a member of a group of Indigenous peoples inhabiting northernmost North America from northern Alaska to eastern Canada and Greenland.
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the language of the Inuit, a member of the Eskimo-Aleut family comprising a variety of dialects.
noun
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any of several Native peoples of N America or Greenland, as distinguished from those from Asia or the Aleutian Islands (who are still generally referred to as Eskimos); the preferred term for Eskimo in N America Compare Yupik
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the language of these peoples; Inuktitut
Sensitivity
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
Etymology
Origin of Inuit
First recorded in 1755–65; from Inuit: literally, “people,” plural of inuk “person”
Compare meaning
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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.
See Examples For:
The Inuit, Mitt says, use every part of a whale as food, tools and cultural sacrament.
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 15, 2026
One of the victims, Henriette Berthelsen, told AFP the conclusions, regardless of what is decided, were skewed from the start since no Greenlandic Inuit were appointed as experts.
From Barron's ● Aug. 28, 2026
They came from a whale that was killed legally by native Inuit in 1996, according to the Local Democracy Reporting Service.
From BBC ● Jul. 31, 2026
To choose the name, the researchers worked with Jarloo Kiguktak, an Inuit Elder and former mayor of Grise Fiord, the northernmost Inuit community in Canada.
From Science Daily ● Mar. 24, 2026
For all we knew, he could have been a small Inuit woman living in Anchorage, Alaska, who had adopted this appearance and voice to make her students more receptive to her lessons.
From "Ready Player One: A Novel" by Ernest Cline
He had brought smallpox with him, and the disease raced around the island, killing Inuits and Europeans alike.
From Science Magazine ● Sep. 26, 2023
The Inuits, now in their 70s, are the surviving members of the group of 22 children who were removed from their homes to be educated as "little Danes".
From BBC ● Nov. 22, 2021
On April 6, 1909, American explorers Robert E. Peary and Matthew A. Henson and four Inuits became the first men to reach the North Pole.
From Washington Times ● Apr. 6, 2021
The Canadian government is discussing the repatriation of the skulls of five Labrador Inuits from the collection of the Musée de l’Homme in Paris.
From New York Times ● Nov. 25, 2014
None of the Inuits had seen the whites, but one native had seen some of their skeletons.
From True Tales of Arctic Heroism in the New World by Adolphus W. Greely
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Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
