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• Oto
  Oto

  noun

  a member of a Siouan-speaking tribe of North American Indians who formerly inhabited the lower Missouri River basin and now live in Oklahoma.
• oto-
  oto-

  a combining form meaning “ear,” used in the formation of compound words.

Oto

¹ American  

[oh-toh] / ˈoʊ toʊ /

Or Otoe

noun

• Otos,
  plural
• Oto
  plural

1. a member of a Siouan-speaking tribe of North American Indians who formerly inhabited the lower Missouri River basin and now live in Oklahoma.

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oto- ² American  

1. a combining form meaning “ear,” used in the formation of compound words.

   otology.

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oto- British  

combining form

1. indicating the ear

   otitis

   otolith

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Usage

What does oto- mean? Oto- is a combining form used like a prefix meaning “ear.” It is often used in medical terms, especially in anatomy and pathology. Oto- comes from the Greek oûs, meaning “ear.” Related to the Greek oûs is English’s own word ear; so is the Latin word for ear, auris, which is the ultimate source of such words as aural. Learn more about oûs at our entry for otic, an adjective used in anatomy meaning “of or relating to the ear.”What are variants of oto-?When combined with words or word elements that begin with a vowel, oto- becomes ot-, as in otitis.

Other Word Forms

Noun Inflected Forms

• Oto
  plural
• Otos
  plural

Etymology

Origin of oto-

< Greek ōto-, combining form of oûs ear ¹

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

Oto Otos

Fort Calhoun traces its roots to a meeting between explorers Meriwether Lewis and William Clark and the Oto and Missouri tribes in August 1804 — 63 years before Nebraska became a state.

From Seattle Times ● Dec. 20, 2023

The film adds the wrinkle that the voice on the cassette with which Kafuku runs lines belongs to his wife, Oto.

From Los Angeles Times ● Mar. 1, 2022

We learn, from the film’s first act, that Oto has died, and that she had betrayed her husband before that.

From Washington Post ● Dec. 7, 2021

In addition, there are many narrative threads that emphasize the power of storytelling, from an idea Oto is creating for television, to multiple productions of "Uncle Vanya," to Misaki's tales about her late mother.

From Salon ● Nov. 23, 2021

The survivors of this gens have joined the Pa-ça or Beaver gens of the Oto tribe.

From Siouan Sociology by James Owen Dorsey

He and most of the 2,000 other Kaws, Pawnees, Otos and Osages present had come in first-class automobiles.

From Time Magazine Archive

Then after Leda to my vision came the wife of Aloeus, Iphimedeia, proud that she once had held the flowing sea and borne him sons, thunderers for a day, the world-renowned Otos and Ephialtes.

From "The Odyssey" by Homer

From there in 1724 he went up the river among the Otos and Iowas, and then southwest to the Padoucas in Western Kansas, taking with him Missouris, Osages, Kansas, Otos, and Iowas.

From The Colonization of North America 1492-1783 by Herbert Eugene Bolton

Boteler, United States Indian service, collected from the Otos at the Oto Agency, Nebraska, during 1879-'80.

From Sign Language Among North American Indians Compared With That Among Other Peoples And Deaf-Mutes First Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology to the Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, 1879-1880, Government Printing Office, Washington, 1881, pages 263-552 by Garrick Mallery

They stayed ten days, to rest; then the Otos gave them each a pony, and in two more weeks they were home.

From Boys' Book of Indian Warriors and Heroic Indian Women by Edwin L. (Edwin Legrand) Sabin