Kiowa

[kahy-uh-wuh, -wah, -wey]

noun

plural

Kiowas ,

plural

Kiowa .

1. a member of an Indigenous Great Plains tribe, now living primarily in Oklahoma.

2. the language of the Kiowa, closely related to Tanoan.

adjective

1. of or relating to the Kiowa or their language.

Word History and Origins

Origin of Kiowa¹

First recorded in 1800–10; from Kiowa kɔjgwu “principal people”

Example Sentences

M. Scott Momaday, in his essay “The Way to Rainy Mountain,” describes his Kiowa grandmother, who “bore an image of deicide.”

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She has created portraits of her family under a Madonna-and-Child-inspired arch, given stereotypical Native imagery the Roy Lichtenstein treatment and shared Kiowa traditions on shoes.

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“The stage itself has expanded,” said Adam Piron, a Kiowa and Mohawk filmmaker and the director of the Sundance Institute Indigenous Program.

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His explorations of identity and self-definition, of the importance of the oral tradition in literature, and of his Kiowa heritage were interwoven with reverent evocations of landscape in passages of soaring lyrical prose.

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“His Kiowa heritage was deeply meaningful to him and he devoted much of his life to celebrating and preserving Native American culture, especially the oral tradition.”

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