Sioux

[ soo ]

noun,plural Sioux [soo, sooz]. /su, suz/.

Origin of Sioux

1
An Americanism dating back to 1755–65; from North American French, shortening of earlier Nadouessioux from Ojibwe (Ottawa dialect) na·towe·ssiw(ak) (plural), from unattested Proto-Algonquian na·towe·hsiw-, derivative of unattested na·towe·wa ”Iroquoian,” probably literally, “speaker of a foreign language”) + French -x plural marker

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How to use Sioux in a sentence

British Dictionary definitions for Sioux

Sioux

/ (suː) /


noun
  1. plural Sioux (suː, suːz) a member of a group of North American Indian peoples formerly ranging over a wide area of the Plains from Lake Michigan to the Rocky Mountains

  2. any of the Siouan languages

Origin of Sioux

1
from French, shortened from Nadowessioux, from Chippewa Nadoweisiw

Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

Cultural definitions for Sioux

Sioux

[ (sooh) ]


A common name for the Dakota people, a tribe of Native Americans inhabiting the northern Great Plains in the nineteenth century. They were famed as warriors and frequently took up arms in the late nineteenth century to oppose the settlement of their hunting grounds and sacred places. In 1876, Sioux warriors, led by Chief Sitting Bull, and commanded in the field by Chief Crazy Horse, overwhelmed the United States cavalry at the Battle of the Little Bighorn. (See Custer's last stand.) A group of Sioux under Chief Big Foot were massacred by United States troops at Wounded Knee in 1890.

The New Dictionary of Cultural Literacy, Third Edition Copyright © 2005 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.