Ottawa

[ot-uh-wuh]

noun

plural

Ottawas ,

plural

Ottawa .

1. a city in and the capital of Canada, in southeastern Ontario.

2. a river in southeastern Canada, flowing southeast along the boundary between Ontario and Quebec into the St. Lawrence River at Montreal. 685 miles (1,105 kilometers) long.

3. a city in northeastern Illinois, southwest of Chicago.

4. a town in eastern Kansas.

5. Also called Odawa. a member of a tribe of Algonquian people of Canada, forced into the Lake Superior and Lake Michigan regions by the Iroquois confederacy.

6. Also called Odawa. the Ojibwe language as used by the Ottawa.

Ottawa

/ ˈɒtəwə /

noun

1. the capital of Canada, in E Ontario on the Ottawa River: name changed from Bytown to Ottawa in 1854. Pop: 774 072 (2001)

2. a river in central Canada, rising in W Quebec and flowing west, then southeast to join the St Lawrence River as its chief tributary at Montreal; forms the border between Quebec and Ontario for most of its length. Length: 1120 km (696 miles)

Ottawa

1. Capital of Canada, located in southeastern Ontario across the Ottawa River from Quebec.

Word History and Origins

Origin of Ottawa¹

First recorded in 1660–70; from French Outaouan, or directly from Ojibwe Ota·wa· “traders”

Example Sentences

"This game of chicken between Marineland, the province and Ottawa is totally unacceptable – Premier Ford needs to step up, lead and stop passing the buck."

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Ottawa estimates that public pension plans, among them the CPP Investment Board and Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan, collectively hold more than 3 trillion Canadian dollars in assets, the equivalent of US$2.1 trillion.

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The man who famously told Ottawa to keep its bureaucratic mitts off Alberta’s oil.

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Exports to countries other than the U.S. also weakened for a third straight month, even as Ottawa has pushed to pivot the country away from a reliance on the massive U.S. market.

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Pete Hoekstra, US ambassador to Canada, told an Ottawa audience in September that Washington had hoped to negotiate a "bigger" deal with Canada, one that covers both trade and defence.

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