squaw

Meaning

Noun

• A woman, wife; especially a Native American woman.

Origin

• From Massachusett squàw, from Proto-Algonquian *eθkwe·wa ("(young) woman"). Cognate with Abenaki -skwa ("female, wife"), Mohegan-Pequot sqá, Cree iskwew / ᐃᐢᑫᐧᐤ, Ojibwe ikwe ("woman"). In the 1970s, some non-linguists began to claim that the word originally meant "vagina"; this has been discredited.