Arawak
Americannoun
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a member of an Indian people once widespread in the Antilles but now living primarily in coastal northeastern South America.
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any of the related Arawakan languages spoken by the Arawak.
Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of Arawak
First recorded in 1835–40; a self-designation of the Arawak people
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.
Columbus used his foreknowledge of a lunar eclipse to force the Arawak residents of present-day Jamaica to heel in fear.
From Los Angeles Times • Apr. 6, 2024
Colón landed in Puerto Rico in 1493 accompanied by Spaniard Ponce de León, who later became the island’s first governor and quelled an uprising by the native Tainos, a subgroup of the Arawak Indians.
From Washington Times • Jul. 11, 2020
The villagers who met the sailors were members of the Taíno, or Arawak, people, who uneasily shared the islands and coastlines of the Caribbean Sea with neighbors they called the Caribs.
From Textbooks • Jan. 18, 2018
It did in fact take a tribe to lay the ground for the phenomenon—specifically, the pre-Columbian Arawak tribe of Hispaniola, who slow-cooked meat over green wood.
From Time • Jul. 4, 2016
Southeast, and the Arawak languages of the West Indies.
From "Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies" by Jared M. Diamond
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.
