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Chautauqua

[shuh-taw-kwuh, chuh-]
noun
  1. Lake, a lake in SW New York. 18 miles (29 km) long.
  2. a village on this lake: summer educational center.
  3. 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.
  4. (usually lowercase) any similar assembly, especially one of a number meeting in a circuit of communities.
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adjective
  1. of or relating to a system of education flourishing in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, originating at Lake Chautauqua, New York.
  2. (usually lowercase) pertaining to a chautauqua: a chautauqua program.
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Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2018

Examples from the Web for chautauqua

Historical Examples

  • Among varieties, Concord reigns supreme in the Chautauqua belt.

    Manual of American Grape-Growing

    U. P. Hedrick

  • This Chautauqua movement is only an attempt to Americanize university extension.

    The Arena

    Various

  • So many questions about Chautauqua, so much to tell that delighted him.

    The Chautauqua Girls At Home

    Pansy, AKA Isabella M. Alden

  • How do you interpret Professor James's reaction to the Chautauqua?

  • I guess there were as many as two hundred Chautauqua salutes after that touchdown.

    At Good Old Siwash

    George Fitch

British Dictionary definitions for chautauqua

chautauqua

noun
  1. (in the US, formerly) a summer school or educational meeting held in the summer
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Word Origin

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."

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Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2010 Douglas Harper