Paumanok

Meaning

Proper Noun

• Long Island.

Origin

• From an Algonquian name for the area. and later Paumanack and Pomonok (preserved as the name of a neighborhood in Flushing in Queens); and then popularized in the spelling Paumanok by Walt Whitman. The precise origin of the name is not entirely clear, and the first element has been suggested to be related to Massachusett pummunnum ("s/he gives away; offers, devotes"), paumpaummunum, and Narragansett pummenum ("contribute"), with the final element probably a locative, making the name "land of tribute" (which had to pay tribute, or where wampum shells for paying tribute were obtained).