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• Native American
  Native American

  noun

  Indian.
• native American
  native American

  noun

  a person born in the United States.

Native American

¹ American  

[nay-tiv uh-mer-i-kuhn] / ˈneɪ tɪv əˈmɛr ɪ kən /

noun

1. Indian.

2. a member of any of the aboriginal peoples of the Americas, including Indians and non-Indians.

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native American ² American  

noun

1. a person born in the United States.

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Native American British  

noun

1. A member of the indigenous peoples of North America

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adjective

1. of, relating to, or characteristic of Native Americans or any of their languages

Sensitive Note

See Indian, Eskimo.

Other Word Forms

• native-American
  adjective

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Etymology

Origin of native American

An Americanism dating back to 1835–45

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Example Sentences

See Examples For:

Native American native American

Different cultures use different names for the 12 or 13 full Moons across the lunar calendar, but many of the common ones we use today originate from Native American cultures.

From BBC ● Oct. 23, 2026

Polly Girvin, Hunter’s former partner and a retired lawyer focused on Native American issues, called AB 2494’s passage by the Legislature “nearly miraculous.”

From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 2, 2026

It also directs state officials to seek agreements with Native American tribes to integrate their traditional knowledge into managing the land.

From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 2, 2026

That population balance helps explain why most of the more than 7,000 artifacts recovered from the site since 2006 are fragments of Native American pottery.

From Science Daily ● Aug. 22, 2026

Most linguists specializing in Native American languages do not discern large, clear-cut groupings other than Eskimo-Aleut and Na-Dene.

From "Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies" by Jared M. Diamond

It is estimated the spread of non native American mink saw 90% of water voles wiped out since the 1970s.

From BBC ● Jun. 30, 2026

States receiving funds had to consult with unions, native American tribes and “local community organizations” on their plans to expand broadband.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Dec. 28, 2025

Rather than lose the unique and native American tree and replace it with a newly created hybrid, they hope to cure the native species before it disappears.

From Salon ● Dec. 18, 2023

Although the variant was established in Asia as a result of interbreeding between Denisovans and sapiens, it also spread to European and native American populations.

From Science Daily ● Oct. 30, 2023

The sabre-tooth cats, after flourishing for more than 30 million years, disappeared, and so did the giant ground sloths, the oversized lions, native American horses, native American camels, the giant rodents and the mammoths.

From "Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind" by Yuval Noah Harari

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