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Chicago

[ shi-kah-goh, -kaw- ]
/ ʃɪˈkɑ goʊ, -ˈkɔ- /
|

noun

JudyJudy Cohen, born 1939, U.S. artist, author, and educator.
a city in NE Illinois, on Lake Michigan: second largest city in the U.S.
a river formed in Chicago that flows through downtown and, as engineered, to the Des Plaines River: part of the Illinois Waterway.

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RELATED WORDS

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

Examples from the Web for chicago

British Dictionary definitions for chicago

Chicago

/ (ʃɪˈkɑːɡəʊ) /

noun

a port in NE Illinois, on Lake Michigan: the third largest city in the US; it is a major railway and air traffic centre. Pop: 2 869 121 (2003 est)
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 chicago

Chicago

n.

town founded in 1833, named from a Canadian French form of an Algonquian word, either Fox /sheka:ko:heki "place of the wild onion," or Ojibwa shika:konk "at the skunk place" (sometimes rendered "place of the bad smell"). The Ojibwa "skunk" word is distantly related to the New England Algonquian word that yielded Modern English skunk (n.). Related: Chicagoan.

Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2010 Douglas Harper

Culture definitions for chicago

Chicago

Largest city in Illinois; located on Lake Michigan.

Note

Originally called the “Windy City” because the city bragged about the 1893 World Expo that was held there. The term has since come to refer to the strong northern winds that blow off the lake in the winter.

Note

For many years the second largest city in the United States, before being displaced by Los Angeles, and therefore referred to as the “Second City.”

Note

During the time of Prohibition, Chicago was controlled by gangsters, Al Capone being the most notorious. Gangster warfare continued long after this particularly violent period.

Note

Carl Sandburg, in his poem “Chicago,” called the city the “Hog Butcher for the World” because of Chicago's heavy involvement in the meatpacking industry.

Note

Chicago's downtown is referred to as the “Loop” because it is enclosed by elevated railways, called the “El.”
The New Dictionary of Cultural Literacy, Third Edition Copyright © 2005 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.