Pawnee
Americannoun
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Pawnees,
plural
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Pawnee
plural
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a member of a confederacy of North American Plains Indians of Caddoan stock formerly located along the Platte River valley, Nebraska, and now living in northern Oklahoma.
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the Caddoan language of the Pawnee Indians.
noun
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a member of a confederacy of related North American Indian peoples, formerly living in Nebraska and Kansas, now chiefly in Oklahoma
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the language of these peoples, belonging to the Caddoan family
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
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:
Chief Hotate often met Leslie Knope, deputy director of the Parks and Recreation department for the fictional city of Pawnee, to discuss use of the land.
From BBC ● Jun. 3, 2025
Unsurprisingly—if you know anything about the people of Pawnee or Knope’s nemesis, dentist Jeremy Jamm—this doesn’t go over well.
From Slate ● Sep. 29, 2024
Due, 31, is Cherokee and a member of the Pawnee Nation of Oklahoma.
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 9, 2024
“A story by itself makes it easy for somebody to say this was just one person’s experience,” said Ms. Echo-Hawk, who lives outside Seattle and is a citizen of the Pawnee Nation.
From New York Times ● Dec. 12, 2023
Pawnee Bill, the legendary Wild West showman and the onetime partner of Buffalo Bill, described Hale as a “high-class gentleman.”
From "Killers of the Flower Moon" by David Grann
You have to ford numerous rivers, and the Shoshones, Pawnees and Sioux, were extremely adept at helping the pioneers make these fords.
From National Geographic ● Jul. 12, 2015
Once the treasures were back in hand, the Pawnees asked the scientists what they had learned.
From Time Magazine Archive
At Pawhuska, Kaw Indians were joined by Osages and Pawnees in putting on war paint & feathers to welcome their fellow tribesman.
From Time Magazine Archive
In Act II a band of Sioux chased a band of Pawnees, then performed a Sun Dance.
From Time Magazine Archive
The Arikkaras, or, as they are called by the Mandans, Rikkaras or Rees, Les Ris of the Canadians, are a branch of the Pawnees, from whom they long since separated.
From Travels in the Interior of North America, Part I, (Being Chapters I-XV of the London Edition, 1843) Early Western Travels, 1748-1846, Volume XXII by Alexander Philipp Maximilian
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.
