Cayuga
Americannoun
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Cayugas,
plural
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Cayuga
plural
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a member of a tribe of North American Indians, the smallest tribe of the Iroquois Confederacy.
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the dialect of the Seneca language spoken by the Cayuga.
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Also called Cayuga duck. one of an American breed of domestic ducks having black plumage.
noun
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a member of a Native American people (one of the Iroquois peoples) formerly living around Cayuga Lake
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the language of this people, belonging to the Iroquoian family
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
Etymology
Origin of Cayuga
1735–45, < Cayuga *kayo·kwę, name of a 17th-century village; compare Cayuga kayokwęhó˙nǫʔ Cayuga (people) (or < a related form in another N Iroquoian language)
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:
Megan Romer likes to spend her free time sewing costumes for school plays, picking blackberries in her backyard in rural Cayuga County, N.Y., and watching her partner play the fiddle in folk bands.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 29, 2026
Seneca-Cayuga filmmaker Erica Tremblay discusses how learning Cayuga inspired her feature debut starring Lily Gladstone.
From Los Angeles Times ● Apr. 15, 2025
New York’s Cayuga Lake Wine Trail is promoting “Sips to the Eclipse” for the weekend ahead of April 8.
From Seattle Times ● Mar. 15, 2024
Bulldozing and claims of kidnapping: The Cayuga Nation, a tribe in upstate New York, is at war with itself.
From New York Times ● Mar. 14, 2023
It was made up of the Seneca, Cayuga, Onondaga, Oneida, and Mohawk Nations and was later joined by the Tuscaroras.
From "An Indigenous People’s History of the United States" by Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz
Ranged across what is now upstate New York, the Mohawks, Oneidas, Onondagas, Cayugas and Senecas had recently forged a “covenant chain” of alliance with several English colonies.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 17, 2026
It is my duty to protect my Cayugas, and it is yours to obey me.
From Cardigan by Robert W. (Robert William) Chambers
He was a bold warrior and the dreaded foe of the Cayugas and Senecas, against whom he led war-parties; he was feared and disliked by his own people.
From American Indians by Frederick Starr
THE year 1667 found Mohawks, Oneidas, Onondagas, Cayugas, and Senecas at peace with the Canadian settlers.
From The Life and Times of Kateri Tekakwitha The Lily of the Mohawks by Ellen H. Walworth
The Iroquois, or People of the Long House, including the Mohawks, Oneidas, Onondagas, Cayugas, and Senecas, were enemies of the Algonquin tribes and hostile to the French.
From The Life and Times of Kateri Tekakwitha The Lily of the Mohawks by Ellen H. Walworth
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.
