Navajo
Americannoun
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Also called Diné. a member of the most populous nation of the southern division of Athabascan Native Americans, located in New Mexico, Arizona, and Utah, and now constituting the largest tribal group in the United States.
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the Athabascan language of the Navajo.
adjective
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
Etymology
Origin of Navajo
First recorded in 1800–10; from American Spanish Apaches de Nabajú “Apaches of Nabajú” (Navajo and several Apachean languages are mutually intelligible), originally a place name applied to the Largo Canyon region of the Four Corners area of northwest New Mexico, from Tewa navahu “large arroyo with cultivated fields”; see also Diné ( def. )
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:
Miranda-Martin painted it with Benjamin Moore’s Navajo, a flat white, as a backdrop to the softer hues of the furniture he designed at his furniture and lighting company, Studio MM.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 26, 2026
“In the beginning there was nothing but Spider Woman,” say Navajo and Pueblo elders.
From The Wall Street Journal ● May 15, 2026
Last year, the Navajo Nation president said his office had received reports of tribal citizens in Arizona and New Mexico getting caught up in the crackdown on undocumented immigrants.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jan. 15, 2026
On Tuesday, that information was presented to a grand jury in Navajo County, and an arrest warrant was issued for Michael Abatti.
From Los Angeles Times ● Dec. 29, 2025
But the Navajo proved especially resilient and able to deal selectively with innovation.
From "Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies" by Jared M. Diamond
The twenty were soon selected; and, stepping out on the open ground, as the Navajoes had done, we piled our rifles in the presence of the enemy.
From The Scalp Hunters by Stewart, F.A.
I have received certain information, by one just escaped from a captivity among the Navajoes, that the warriors of both tribes are about to proceed southward.
From The Scalp Hunters by Stewart, F.A.
I knew that my captive daughter was in the hands of the Navajoes.
From The Scalp Hunters by Stewart, F.A.
It was the horse-tread of the approaching Navajoes!
From The Scalp Hunters by Stewart, F.A.
The Navajoes, about twenty-two thousand in number, now own more than twelve million acres in Arizona and New Mexico.
From The Indian To-day The Past and Future of the First American by Eastman, Charles Alexander
The tribal official urged Navajos to carry state-issued identification or their “Certificate of Indian blood.”
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jan. 15, 2026
But that belief has sometimes put her at odds with other Navajos.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jan. 3, 2024
Leger Fernández acknowledged that balancing competing interests such as cultural preservation and the poverty faced by Navajos make for difficult choices.
From Seattle Times ● Jul. 13, 2023
“The Navajos do not contend that the United States has interfered with their access to water,” he wrote.
From New York Times ● Jun. 22, 2023
Only a few Navajos had been accepted as U.S. soldiers, all of them men who had been to mission school.
From "Code Talker: A Novel About the Navajo Marines of World War Two" by Joseph Bruchac
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.
