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

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Etymology

Origin of Yaqui

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

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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

Burgundy Trejo Phoenix, an Yaqui actress who voices a character named Squash in “Spirit Rangers,” first connected with the Chapter House when it screened the Season 4 finale of the kids show in April.

From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 9, 2024

The Pascua Yaqui Tribe has 22,000 enrolled members, but limited land and housing allow only a third to live on its 3.5-square-mile reservation on the outskirts of Tucson.

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

Jimsy King was swinging toward them through the brazen three o'clock glare, his Yaqui Juan by his side.

From Play the Game! by Ruth Comfort Mitchell

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

President Andrés Manuel López Obrador last month apologized to the Yaquis for past abuses and promised a series of infrastructure programs to improve their lives.

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

Cowboys rode to and fro, and Bud and his cousins prepared to depart for Diamond X Second to arrange for taking the trail against the Yaquis.

From The Boy Ranchers Among the Indians or, Trailing the Yaquis by Willard F. Baker

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