Wampanoag
Americannoun
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Wampanoags,
plural
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Wampanoag
plural
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a member of a once-powerful North American Indian people who inhabited the area east of Narragansett Bay from Rhode Island to Cape Cod, Martha's Vineyard, and Nantucket at the time of the Pilgrim settlement.
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the Eastern Algonquian speech of the Wampanoag people, a dialect of Massachusett.
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
Etymology
Origin of Wampanoag
An Americanism dating back to 1670–80, from Narragansett (spoken in Rhode Island, west of the Wampanoag); literally “those of the east; easterners,” equivalent to Proto-Algonquian *wa·pan ( w )- “dawn” + -o·w- “person of” + *-aki plural suffix
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:
Thanksgiving is thought to be modeled on a 1621 harvest meal between the Wampanoag people and English colonists known as Pilgrims.
From Barron's ● Nov. 27, 2025
Americans have celebrated Thanksgiving for more than 400 years, beginning in 1621 when the Pilgrims and Wampanoag came together for their famous feast.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Nov. 25, 2025
This, he says, is what grounds the Wampanoag and is their driving force, both in the past and to this day.
From Salon ● Nov. 23, 2023
Under FastHorse and Defoe’s counsel, the 2020 parade included a Wampanoag blessing and a land acknowledgment recognizing that Manhattan is part of Lenapehoking, or the land of the Lenape people.
From New York Times ● Apr. 5, 2023
Meanwhile, the Wampanoag were rivals and enemies of the Narragansett and Pequots to the west and the many groups of Abenaki to the north.
From "1491" by Charles C. Mann
He looks forward to returning years and decades from now not just to see how the plants he helped nourish take hold, but also how Wampanoags use the restored land.
From Washington Times ● Aug. 24, 2022
He and Bradford became friends, and Tisquantum and other Wampanoags famously showed the Pilgrims how to plant crops, catch fish and survive in the “New World.”
From Washington Post ● Nov. 25, 2021
The Native people who came to the celebration were Wampanoags, though, and the corn that was served was Wampanoag corn.
From New York Times ● Nov. 22, 2021
The Wampanoags kept tabs on the Pilgrims for months.
From Seattle Times ● Nov. 4, 2021
War had occasionally raged between the Narragansets and the Wampanoags, and the two tribes were bitterly hostile to each other.
From King Philip Makers of History by Abbott, John S. C. (John Stevens Cabot)
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.
