Inuit
Americannoun
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Inuits,
plural
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Inuit
plural
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a member of a group of Indigenous peoples inhabiting northernmost North America from northern Alaska to eastern Canada and Greenland.
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the language of the Inuit, a member of the Eskimo-Aleut family comprising a variety of dialects.
noun
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any of several Native peoples of N America or Greenland, as distinguished from those from Asia or the Aleutian Islands (who are still generally referred to as Eskimos); the preferred term for Eskimo in N America Compare Yupik
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the language of these peoples; Inuktitut
Sensitive Note
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
Etymology
Origin of Inuit
First recorded in 1755–65; from Inuit: literally, “people,” plural of inuk “person”
Compare meaning
How does inuit compare to similar and commonly confused words? Explore the most common comparisons:
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:
No news regarding the coming fall season has made me happier than the return of this sunny, aspirational Indigenous comedy, set in a small town among the Inuit people in Nunavut, Canada’s northernmost territory.
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 1, 2026
The two experts who remained, Alaskan lawyer Dalee Sambo Dorough and University of Copenhagen law professor Miriam Cullen, found in their report that the rights of Inuit women in Greenland had been violated.
From BBC ● Aug. 28, 2026
A Greenlandic commission is to present a highly anticipated report Friday to determine whether Denmark's forced contraception of thousands of the Arctic island's indigenous Inuit constituted a "genocide".
From Barron's ● Aug. 28, 2026
He wants Greenland to leave the Kingdom of Denmark and enter into a form of free-association agreement with the U.S. that protects it militarily and recognizes the rights of its Inuit people.
From The Wall Street Journal ● May 22, 2026
Inuksuk was an Inuit word for a tall stack of stones in the shape of a person.
From "Two Degrees" by Alan Gratz
As a proportion of males between the ages of 18 and 60, this equates to an estimated 2% of Chukchi, 1.4% of Russian Inuits, 1.32% of Koryaks and 0.8% of Khanty.
From BBC ● Feb. 19, 2026
He had brought smallpox with him, and the disease raced around the island, killing Inuits and Europeans alike.
From Science Magazine ● Sep. 26, 2023
On April 6, 1909, American explorers Robert E. Peary and Matthew A. Henson and four Inuits became the first men to reach the North Pole.
From Washington Times ● Apr. 6, 2021
Based on the novel of the same name by Dan Simmons, the 10-episode series features ice, Inuits, hubris, hunger and a mysterious polar predator.
From New York Times ● Jan. 5, 2018
Henry and Frank, with all the Inuits, left us on the 6th of August to reach the rest of our party, whom they expected to find somewhere east of Gladman point.
From Schwatka's Search by William H. (William Henry) Gilder
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.
