Sitting Bull

American  

noun

1. 1834–90, American Indian warrior: leader of the Hunkpapa; victor at Little Bighorn, 1876.

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Sitting Bull British  

noun

1. Indian name Tatanka Yotanka . ?1831–90, American Indian chief of the Teton Dakota Sioux. Resisting White encroachment on his people's hunting grounds, he led the Sioux tribes against the US Army in the Sioux War (1876–77) in which Custer was killed. The hunger of the Sioux, whose food came from the diminishing buffalo, forced his surrender (1881). He was killed during renewed strife

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Sitting Bull Cultural  

1. A Native American leader of the Sioux tribe in the late nineteenth century. He was a chief and medicine man when the Sioux took up arms against settlers in the northern Great Plains and against United States army troops. He was present at the Battle of the Little Bighorn in 1876, when the Sioux decisively defeated the cavalry led by Colonel George Custer. (See Custer's last stand.)

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Example Sentences

The Lakota chief Sitting Bull and his starving band of followers ended nearly two decades of intermittent warfare with the United States on July 20, 1881, when they surrendered at Fort Buford, in Dakota Territory.

From The Wall Street Journal • Oct. 31, 2025

Cal Fire urged residents to head to the evacuation site “safely and immediately” at Sitting Bull Academy, 19445 Sitting Bull Road.

From Los Angeles Times • Jun. 10, 2025

Lakota chief Sitting Bull was gunned down by members of his own tribe, who served in the reservation's police force at Standing Rock.

From Salon • Feb. 11, 2023

His many theater appearances ranged from a brutal detective in a 1983 Broadway revival of “Porgy and Bess” to Chief Sitting Bull in the 2000 revival of “Annie Get Your Gun” with Reba McEntire.

From Seattle Times • Jul. 8, 2022

At Custer we made a side trip south to pay our respects to General Custer and Sitting Bull on the battlefield of Little Big Horn.

From "Travels with Charley in Search of America" by John Steinbeck