Nanticoke

¹ American  

[nan-ti-kohk] / ˈnæn tɪˌkoʊk /

noun

• Nanticokes,
  plural
• Nanticoke
  plural

1. a member of an Indigenous North American people who have traditionally inhabited Maryland, Delaware, and Pennsylvania.

2. the Algonquian language of the Nanticoke.

3. a member of a group of people of southern Delaware with mixed white, Black, and Indigenous ancestry.

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Nanticoke ² American  

[nan-ti-kohk, -koh] / ˈnæn tɪˌkoʊk, -ˌkoʊ /

noun

1. a city in SE Ontario, in S Canada, on Lake Erie.

2. a city in E Pennsylvania.

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Other Word Forms

Noun Inflected Forms

• Nanticoke
  plural
• Nanticokes
  plural

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Etymology

Origin of Nanticoke

First recorded in 1640–50; from Nanticoke (an Eastern Algonquian language), the name of a place once inhabited by the tribe

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Example Sentences

See Examples For:

Nanticoke Nanticokes

In April, Bresnahan announced the launch of the coalition and that it would be chaired by two local politicians, former Nanticoke mayor and current City Council President Joseph Dougherty and Jessup Borough Councilman Jeff Castellani.

From Salon ● May 6, 2026

As they journeyed through the region, their travels brought them face to face with the people who had lived there for millennia – the Lenni Lenape, the father tribe of the Lenape and Nanticoke Indians.

From Washington Times ● Jul. 23, 2022

Still, Blackwater tells of the humans who are a part of its story, from the first Native American inhabitants, including the Nanticoke people, to the Civilian Conservation Corps workers of the 1930s.

From New York Times ● Jun. 21, 2022

The company’s Nanticoke winter squash is a traditional crop of the Nanticoke people, one of the southernmost groups in the Algonquin language family, historically from parts of Maryland and Delaware.

From Seattle Times ● Jan. 24, 2022

The Master ceased speaking, and the Nanticoke did as he was bid.

From Traditions of the North American Indians, Vol. 2 by James Athearn Jones

Street said some Nanticokes took on European last names because “nobody knew how to translate” their native names.

From Washington Post ● Nov. 28, 2021

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 land the Nanticokes recently acquired sits near a former one-room schoolhouse for Native American children that opened in the 1920s and closed in the 1960s.

From Washington Post ● Nov. 28, 2021

Known as the “People of the Tide Water,” the Nanticokes had their traditional homelands in the Chesapeake Bay area and Delaware, and traded beaver pelts with the English.

From Washington Post ● Nov. 28, 2021

This is sufficient evidence that the Canienga "Book of Rites" was composed in its present form after the Tuscaroras, and possibly after the Nanticokes and Tuteloes, were received into the League.

From The Iroquois Book of Rites by Horatio Hale

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