Lenape
Americannoun
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
Etymology
Origin of Lenape
1720–30, < Unami Delaware ləná·p·e (equivalent to Proto-Algonquian *elen- ordinary + *-a·pe·w man)
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
As children, cattle and lambs happily commune with bears, lions and wolves in the foreground, the background depicts William Penn making a treaty with Tamanend, chief of the Lenape Nation, and founding Pennsylvania.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 3, 2026
As a Quaker, Penn sought peaceful interactions with the Lenape people, said Jean Soderlund, a retired professor of history at Lehigh University.
From Seattle Times ● Jan. 11, 2024
Lehigh University’s Bethlehem campus is home to the Delaware Nation of Oklahoma’s extension Tribal Historic Preservation Office, which is part of their Lenape homelands.
From Washington Times ● Oct. 13, 2023
Another project adviser, George Stonefish, a Lenape elder and organizer, would like the museum to teach how much the Dutch residents depended on Indigenous people for sustenance.
From New York Times ● Jun. 22, 2023
When we were studying the history of New York, we talked about the Lenape people—they were the real Native New Yorkers, but it wasn’t called New York then.
From "Harbor Me" by Jacqueline Woodson
Leaders of both the Nanticokes and Lenapes said they had tried for years to buy the parcels, but they either couldn’t make the deal come together or they didn’t have enough money.
From Washington Post ● Nov. 28, 2021
The indigenous, matriarchal Lenapes got short shrift; Quakers and Jews were not accepted originally, until the West India Company overruled Gov. Peter Stuyvesant.
From New York Times ● Jan. 4, 2018
The expounders of dreams gave it as their opinion, that the Great Spirit had bidden the familiar genius of the warrior to reveal to him the work to which he had ordained the Lenapes.
From Traditions of the North American Indians, Vol. 2 by Jones, James Athearn
The Mengwe took the lands which lay on the shores of the lakes of the north; the Lenapes chose those which received the beams of the warm suns of the south.
From Traditions of the North American Indians, Vol. 2 by Jones, James Athearn
The Lenapes, having obeyed the orders of the Wahconda, set out on their march.
From Traditions of the North American Indians, Vol. 2 by Jones, James Athearn
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
