Shawnee

American  

[shaw-nee] / ʃɔˈni /

noun

• Shawnees,
  plural
• Shawnee
  plural

1. a member of an Algonquian-speaking tribe formerly in the east-central U.S., now in Oklahoma.

2. the Algonquian language of the Shawnee tribe.

3. a town in E Kansas.

4. a city in central Oklahoma.

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Shawnee British  

/ ʃɔːˈniː /

noun

1. a member of a North American Indian people formerly living along the Tennessee River

2. the language of this people, belonging to the Algonquian family

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Other Word Forms

Noun Inflected Forms

• Shawnee
  plural
• Shawnees
  plural

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Etymology

Origin of Shawnee

1720–30, back formation from earlier Shawnese, Shawanese (construed as plural), reshaping (with -ese ) of earlier Shawanoes (plural) < Munsee Delaware šá·wano·w (singular) < Shawnee ša·wano·ki Shawnees, literally, people of the south

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Example Sentences

See Examples For:

Shawnee Shawnees

Bare rode Rebel across property still full of arrowheads left behind by Cherokee and Shawnee tribes, hundreds of acres of Huddleston family farmland that started with a single purchase in 1848.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 16, 2026

Shawnee Smith in "Saw" However, we’d be remiss if we didn’t consider the “Saw” movies, which sit at the other end of Perkins’ spectrum of pastiche.

From Salon ● Feb. 26, 2025

And when chiseled turkey bones were unearthed on Tennessee land once inhabited by the Cherokee, Chickasaw, Shawnee and Yuchi peoples, archaeologists weren’t sure if they were for tattooing, medicinal uses or leatherworking.

From Los Angeles Times ● Feb. 28, 2024

Chiefs coach Andy Reid also took time to comfort others at the scene, including Shawnee Mission East 10th-grader Gabe Wallace.

From Seattle Times ● Feb. 15, 2024

Dunmore’s War was only the beginning of a three-decade war between the settlers and the Shawnee Nation and its allies.

From "An Indigenous People’s History of the United States" by Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz

But leaders of the Shawnee Tribe and the Eastern Shawnees, both now based in Oklahoma, like the Delawares, said they hadn’t had any discussions about it.

From Seattle Times ● Jan. 11, 2024

Early inhabitants had been Shawnees, Miamis, Wyandots, and numerous smaller tribes, but retreating bands of Delawares and others had joined them from the East.

From Textbooks ● Jan. 18, 2018

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

The United States acquired the territory that became downtown Chicago from Wyandots, Delawares, Shawnees, and others in the same 1795 treaty that gave the U.S. most of Ohio.

From Slate ● Jul. 6, 2014

From there, Tenskwatawa and others traveled throughout Shawnee country, calling on Shawnees to return to their traditional religions and cultural roots.

From "An Indigenous People’s History of the United States" by Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz

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