Navajo

American  

[nav-uh-hoh, nah-vuh-] / ˈnæv əˌhoʊ, ˈnɑ və- /

Or Navaho

noun

• Navajos,
  plural
• Navajoes,
  plural
• Navajo
  plural

1. Also called Diné.  a member of the most populous nation of the southern division of Athabascan Native Americans, located in New Mexico, Arizona, and Utah, and now constituting the largest tribal group in the United States.

2. the Athabascan language of the Navajo.

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adjective

1. Also of, relating to, or characteristic of the Navajo, their language, or their culture.

   a Navajo blanket.

Other Word Forms

Noun Inflected Forms

• Navajo
  plural
• Navajoes
  plural
• Navajos
  plural

Etymology

Origin of Navajo

First recorded in 1800–10; from American Spanish Apaches de Nabajú “Apaches of Nabajú” (Navajo and several Apachean languages are mutually intelligible), originally a place name applied to the Largo Canyon region of the Four Corners area of northwest New Mexico, from Tewa navahu “large arroyo with cultivated fields”; see also Diné ( def. )

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

Navajo Navajoes Navajos

Miranda-Martin painted it with Benjamin Moore’s Navajo, a flat white, as a backdrop to the softer hues of the furniture he designed at his furniture and lighting company, Studio MM.

From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 26, 2026

“In the beginning there was nothing but Spider Woman,” say Navajo and Pueblo elders.

From The Wall Street Journal ● May 15, 2026

The two came up with a bold redesign — bright colors to attract motorists and greetings in four languages to honor the surrounding Navajo, Zuni, Acoma and Laguna communities.

From Los Angeles Times ● May 12, 2026

Last year, the Navajo Nation president said his office had received reports of tribal citizens in Arizona and New Mexico getting caught up in the crackdown on undocumented immigrants.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jan. 15, 2026

They still spoke Navajo that Nathan couldn’t understand.

From "Healer of the Water Monster" by Brian Young

We are the children of Montezuma; we are Navajoes.

From The Scalp Hunters by F.A. Stewart

They could thus descry the returning Navajoes in time to escape unobserved themselves along the foot of the mountain.

From The Scalp Hunters by F.A. Stewart

A chief of the Navajoes, the descendants of the great Montezuma; the son of their king!”

From The Scalp Hunters by F.A. Stewart

The Apaches have committed no depredations of late, but the Navajoes have broken their treaty by stealing several thousand sheep from the settlements on the Rio del Norte.

From The International Monthly, Volume 2, No. 4, March, 1851 by Various

As soon as this was announced to the Navajoes, twenty men—already chosen, no doubt—stepped out into the open prairie, and striking their lances into the ground, rested against them their bows, quivers, and shields.

From The Scalp Hunters by F.A. Stewart

The tribal official urged Navajos to carry state-issued identification or their “Certificate of Indian blood.”

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jan. 15, 2026

According to their creation story, Navajos were born out of the same earth and stone.

From Los Angeles Times ● Apr. 7, 2024

Leger Fernández acknowledged that balancing competing interests such as cultural preservation and the poverty faced by Navajos make for difficult choices.

From Seattle Times ● Jul. 13, 2023

“The Navajos do not contend that the United States has interfered with their access to water,” he wrote.

From New York Times ● Jun. 22, 2023

We Indians had plenty to share about the things we’d been through—although we Navajos never told any Indian who was not a code talker anything about our secret.

From "Code Talker: A Novel About the Navajo Marines of World War Two" by Joseph Bruchac