Yaqui

American  

[yah-kee] / ˈjɑ ki /

noun

• Yaquis,
  plural
• Yaqui
  plural

1. Also called Yoeme.  a member of an Indigenous people of Sonora, Mexico, now living also in other parts of northwestern Mexico and in Arizona and Texas.

2. Also called Yoem Noki.  the Uto-Aztecan language of the Yaqui.

3. a river in northwestern Mexico, flowing into the Gulf of California. 420 miles (676 kilometers) long.

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adjective

1. of or relating to the Yaqui or their language.

Yaqui British  

/ ˈjaki /

noun

1. a river in NW Mexico, rising near the border with the US and flowing south to the Gulf of California. Length: about 676 km (420 miles)

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Other Word Forms

Noun Inflected Forms

• Yaqui
  plural
• Yaquis
  plural

Etymology

Origin of Yaqui

First recorded in 1860–65; from Mexican Spanish, from earlier Hiaquis (plural), from Yaqui hiaki, hiyaki “the Yaqui River”

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

Yaqui Yaquis

That invitation begins at mile 18, where the Yaqui Pass Road turnoff leads northeast toward the desert basin and the gateway community of Borrego Springs.

From Los Angeles Times ● Apr. 7, 2026

A subdivision still under construction has just started to welcome some Pascua Yaqui families to live on the reservation.

From Salon ● Jul. 2, 2023

He said border officials question the people he’s escorting, whose first language is Yaqui, without an interpreter, and cultural objects, such as deer and pig hooves, have been confiscated.

From Seattle Times ● May 13, 2023

Now, the Pascua Yaqui Tribe is trying to change this - for themselves and potentially dozens of other tribes in the U.S.

From Washington Times ● May 13, 2023

“Bub, do you know where we are?” asked Pike––“this draw slants south and has brought us fair into the Palomitas trail where it comes into the old Yaqui trail, and on south to hell.”

From The Treasure Trail A Romance of the Land of Gold and Sunshine by Robert Wesley Amick

Their work could provide a template for dozens of Native American nations whose homelands, like the Pascua Yaquis, were sliced in two by modern-day U.S. borders.

From Washington Times ● May 13, 2023

The Yaquis say that isn’t true, and that the young men were just innocent victims.

From Seattle Times ● Sep. 28, 2022

They said that General Amarilla was actually fighting for the Mexican army and helped oversee Yaquis in Tlaxcala who had been taken as war prisoners and sent to work in mines.

From New York Times ● Jun. 18, 2022

The Yaquis wouldn’t have been given the green light from the Justice Department to launch the pilot project without Acosta, a longtime public defender — and she knows it.

From Washington Post ● Apr. 19, 2014

The Yaquis are upon us!” he cried, driving the spurs into his horse.

From Across the Mesa by Henry Clarence Pitz