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

With the new Canada-Alberta pact, “the message from Ottawa is no longer that certain things are off the table,” said Heather Exner-Pirot, director of energy policy at the Macdonald-Laurier Institute think tank in Ottawa.

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Under the plan, Ottawa also agreed to set aside an emissions cap, which has not yet come into effect.

Read more on Barron's

Under the plan, Ottawa also agreed to set aside an emissions cap, which has not yet come into effect.

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Paul Vieira covers Canada for The Wall Street Journal, and is based in Ottawa.He writes about what’s transpiring in the U.S.’s northern neighbor with an eye toward the broader global context.

Read more on The Wall Street Journal

Inflationary pressures have also eased after Ottawa, as of September, dropped retaliatory tariffs on imports of most U.S. goods.

Read more on The Wall Street Journal