a member of a group of North American Indians inhabiting the largest of the Indian pueblos, in western New Mexico.
the language of the Zuni.
a member of a North American Indian people of W New Mexico
the language of this people, a member of the Penutian phylum of languages
An Americanism first recorded in 1830–35; earlier Zuñi, from Spanish (southwestern United States), from Acoma Keresan sɨ̂·ni (pronounced sθɨ̂·nyi ) or a cognate
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
Denied entrance by the Zuni inhabitants, the starving Spaniards decided to attack.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Apr. 28, 2026
He joined a team digging for dinosaur fossils in the Zuni Basin in New Mexico.
From NewsForKids.net ● Jun. 3, 2024
Zuni farmers in the southwestern United States made it through long stretches of extremely low rainfall between A.D.
From Salon ● Feb. 26, 2024
Sanchez offered an example to explain how the “West” has a different concept of ecology than the Zuni.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jan. 3, 2024
His house was high in the peaks of the Zuni mountains and he waited for people to wander up to his place.
From "Ceremony:" by Leslie Marmon Silko
The Hopi and Zuñi tribes of Arizona and the modern Pueblo people of northern New Mexico are their descendants.
From Textbooks ● Jan. 18, 2018
Frank Cushing once took a party of Zuñi Indians to the Atlantic Ocean to get sea-water for certain ceremonials.
From American Indians by Starr, Frederick
Fray Marcos returned soon from Zuñi to Mexico, on account of his physical infirmities.
From The Spanish Pioneers by Lummis, Charles F.
I have read that among the Zuñi Indians it was a sacred law that some of their tribe should, each year, pour the waters of the Pacific into those of the Atlantic.
From A Flight in Spring In the car Lucania from New York to the Pacific coast and back, during April and May, 1898 by Knowles, J. Harris (John Harris)
The Zuñi Indians who have an eye for the picturesque as well as for the truth state the chief fact about haloes happily: “When the sun is in his house it will rain soon.”
From Reading the Weather by Longstreth, Thomas Morris
Coronado survived the fight with the Zunis at Hawikku.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Apr. 28, 2026
The Zunis rained stones down on the invaders; one well-aimed boulder struck Coronado’s helmet.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Apr. 28, 2026
They worked as coal miners, train mechanics, barkeeps, cowpunchers, lumberjacks, shepherds and Indian traders — Slavs, Italians, Finns, Russians, Irish, Greeks, Mexicans, Navajos and Zunis.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 3, 2017
Last month 1,000 Navajos and 300 Zunis went a-nutting in small canvas-covered wagons.
From Time Magazine Archive
That was the warning the old Zunis, and Hopis, and Navajos had about Gallup.
From "Ceremony:" by Leslie Marmon Silko
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.
