Nootka
Americannoun
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Nootkas,
plural
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Nootka
plural
noun
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a member of a North American Indian people living in British Columbia and Vancouver Island
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the language of this people, belonging to the Wakashan family
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
Etymology
Origin of Nootka
First recorded in 1780–90; possibly from Nootka nu⋅tka⋅ “to circle around,” mistaken by Captain James Cook to be the name of the people or of Nootka Sound
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:
On Nootka Island, areas of uncut forest show the abundance that was.
From Seattle Times ● Feb. 19, 2023
Quoted in court were Cook's writing about how the indigenous people he met on Nootka had "such high notions of everything the country produced being their exclusive property".
From BBC ● Jan. 22, 2023
Both drew inspiration for their work from their study of North American languages such as Nootka, Shawnee and Hopi.
From The Guardian ● Jul. 27, 2018
Sept. 5; see Edward Curtis’ “The North American Indian,” Volume 11, the Nootka and Haida nations, 10:30 a.m.
From Seattle Times ● Aug. 24, 2017
But into the harbour of Nootka that same year of 1788, there sailed the ship of destiny, the Columbia Rediviva, in command of John Kendrick.
From The Columbia River Its History, Its Myths, Its Scenery, Its Commerce by William Denison Lyman
With the Nootkas, women are consulted on all matters of business.
From Religion & Sex Studies in the Pathology of Religious Development by Chapman Cohen
The Arcadians were bears, knew it, and possibly danced a bear dance, as Mandans or Nootkas dance a buffalo dance or a wolf dance.
From Modern Mythology by Andrew Lang
It was a union of the Indian tribes of Oregon and Washington, with the Willamettes at the head, against their great hereditary enemies, the Nootkas, the Shoshones, and the Spokanes.
From The Bridge of the Gods A Romance of Indian Oregon. 19th Edition. by Frederic Homer Balch
Among the Nootkas whole tribes lived under one roof.
From The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State by Friedrich Engels
The chief of the Nootkas presented Cook with a sea-otter cloak.
From Vikings of the Pacific The Adventures of the Explorers who Came from the West, Eastward by Agnes C. (Agnes Christina) Laut
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.
