Shoshone
Americannoun
plural
Shoshones,plural
Shoshone-
a river in NW Wyoming, flowing NE into the Big Horn River. 120 miles (193 km) long.
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a member of any of several Numic-speaking peoples of California, Nevada, Utah, Idaho, and Wyoming.
-
the language or languages of the Shoshone.
noun
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a member of a North American Indian people of the southwestern US, related to the Aztecs
-
the language of this people, belonging to the Uto-Aztecan family
Etymology
Origin of Shoshone
An Americanism dating back to 1805; < an Eastern Shoshone band name
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.
Others—including York, Clark’s enslaved manservant, and Sacagawea, a kidnapped Shoshone teenager pregnant with the child of the expedition’s interpreter, Charbonneau—did not have a say in the matter.
From The Wall Street Journal • Apr. 16, 2026
We walked to the end of town, where spring-fed pools hold the fate of the only population of Shoshone pupfish in the world.
From Los Angeles Times • Feb. 5, 2026
To choose the name, the research team, led by University of Utah biology professor Michael Werner, worked with the Northwestern Band of the Shoshone Nation.
From Science Daily • Jan. 10, 2026
Another focus is the history of Indigenous people, the Paiute and Shoshone, who decades before L.A.’s water grab saw their ancestral lands taken and occupied by white settlers.
From Los Angeles Times • Nov. 15, 2024
At that end were many of the Shoshone, Crow, and Ankara scouts.
From "In the Footsteps of Crazy Horse" by Joseph Marshall III
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.
