Arawak

American  

[ar-uh-wahk, -wak] / ˈær əˌwɑk, -ˌwæk /

noun

plural

Arawaks,

plural

Arawak

1. a member of an Indian people once widespread in the Antilles but now living primarily in coastal northeastern South America.

2. any of the related Arawakan languages spoken by the Arawak.

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Etymology

Origin of Arawak

First recorded in 1835–40; a self-designation of the Arawak people

Example Sentences

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

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

Dessalines called the country Haiti, which in the language of the Arawak natives meant “mountainous land.”

From Textbooks • Jan. 1, 2012

Southeast, and the Arawak languages of the West Indies.

From "Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies" by Jared M. Diamond