Tlingit
Americannoun
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a member of any of a number of Indigenous peoples of the coastal regions of southern Alaska and northern British Columbia.
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the language of the Tlingit, a Na-Dene language.
noun
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a member of a seafaring group of North American Indian peoples inhabiting S Alaska and N British Columbia
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the language of these peoples, belonging to the Na-Dene phylum
Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of Tlingit
First recorded in 1865–70; from Tlingit tłingít “human being, person, Tlingit”
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.
“We are a far cry from where we were last year,” said Roald Helgesen, chief operating officer of the Tlingit and Haida Indian Tribes of Alaska based in Juneau.
From The Wall Street Journal • Aug. 13, 2025
Share a bit about your research into Alaska Native cultures and why the Tlingit people became a compelling element in the novel.
From Los Angeles Times • Mar. 17, 2025
Hall was born into the Tlingit tribe in a small fishing village in Alaska.
From Salon • Dec. 26, 2024
Yet North American societies like the Kwakwaka’wakw, Coast Salish, and Tlingit were seen as outliers on an evolutionary ladder that led from foraging to farming to complex states and the origins of modern society.
From Science Magazine • Nov. 29, 2023
The Tlingit possessed no written records, nor had Cowee ever heard of La Perouse.
From "Cosmos" by Carl Sagan
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.
