Chautauqua

[ shuh-taw-kwuh, chuh- ]

/ ʃəˈtɔ kwə, tʃə- /

noun

Lake, a lake in SW New York. 18 miles (29 km) long.

a village on this lake: summer educational center.

an annual educational meeting, originating in this village in 1874, providing public lectures, concerts, and dramatic performances during the summer months, usually in an outdoor setting.

(usually lowercase) any similar assembly, especially one of a number meeting in a circuit of communities.

adjective

of or relating to a system of education flourishing in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, originating at Lake Chautauqua, New York.

(usually lowercase) pertaining to a chautauqua: a chautauqua program.

Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2019

Examples from the Web for chautauqua

On the other side of the roadway were pretty cottages rather larger than most of those at Chautauqua.
Ethel Morton at Chautauqua|Mabell S. C. Smith
This was the first carload of grapes sent from Chautauqua County.
The Grapes of New York|U. P. Hedrick
He continued with us year after year until a new position in Cleveland, Ohio, compelled him to sever relations with Chautauqua.
The Story of Chautauqua|Jesse Lyman Hurlbut
Thus the Concords grown here are well out of the way of those grown in the Chautauqua district.
The Grapes of New York|U. P. Hedrick

Some three years later Mr. Cook was on our chautauqua program at Lexington, Kentucky.
Wit, Humor, Reason, Rhetoric, Prose, Poetry and Story Woven into Eight Popular Lectures|George W. Bain

British Dictionary definitions for chautauqua

chautauqua

/ (ʃəˈtɔːkwə) /

noun

(in the US, formerly) a summer school or educational meeting held in the summer

Word Origin for chautauqua

C19: named after Chautauqua, a lake in New York near which such a school was first held

Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

Word Origin and History for chautauqua

Chautauqua

"assembly for popular education," 1873, from town in New York, U.S., where an annual Methodist summer colony featured lectures. The name is from ja'dahgweh, a Seneca (Iroquoian) name, possibly "one has taken out fish there," but an alternative suggested meaning is "raised body."