Ottawa

American  

[ot-uh-wuh] / ˈɒt ə wə /

noun

• Ottawas,
  plural
• Ottawa
  plural

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.

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Ottawa British  

/ 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)

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Ottawa Cultural  

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

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Other Word Forms

Noun Inflected Forms

• Ottawa
  plural
• Ottawas
  plural

Etymology

Origin of Ottawa

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

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

Ottawa Ottawas

The summer 2026 calving was first identified on August 4 by Adam Garbo, a doctoral student in glaciology at the University of Ottawa, using imagery from the European Space Agency's Sentinel-1 mission.

From Science Daily ● Sep. 4, 2026

The Dutch central bank moved about 86 metric tons of gold from New York and Ottawa to London due to increasing geopolitical unrest.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 3, 2026

Before the deployment, the Dutch bank held 31.3 percent of its gold in New York and 19.7 percent in Ottawa.

From Barron's ● Sep. 2, 2026

Miyashita asked Weber, who was then at Carleton University, along with two undergraduate students at the University of Ottawa, to search published research and museum databases for photographs of developing snakes.

From Science Daily ● Sep. 1, 2026

This was exemplified quite well by the map in the Ottawa office of Vice-Co-ordinator Hiram Mackenzie, in which the North Pole was centered.

From "I, Robot" by Isaac Asimov

The French, aided by the Potawotomis, Ottawas, Shawnees, and Delawares, ambushed the fifteen hundred British soldiers and Virginia militia who marched to the fort.

From Textbooks ● Dec. 30, 2014

By the Ottawas I am called "Little Crane."

From Time Magazine Archive

On the seventeenth of August, he reached Detroit, where he found a great gathering of Indians, Ottawas, Pottawattamies, and Ojibwas; some encamped about the fort, and others along the banks of the River Rouge.

From The Conspiracy of Pontiac and the Indian War after the Conquest of Canada by Francis Parkman

Among the Indians present were a band of Ottawas from Michillimackinac, and remoter settlements, beyond Lake Michigan, and a band of Menomonies from Green Bay.

From The Conspiracy of Pontiac and the Indian War after the Conquest of Canada by Francis Parkman

The remaining barges proceeded up the river, and crossed to the house of Mr. Meloche, where Pontiac and his Ottawas were encamped.

From The Conspiracy of Pontiac and the Indian War after the Conquest of Canada by Francis Parkman