mingo
mingo Lexical Profile
• noun
American A regional commercial and recreational name for the vermilion snapper, a marine ray-finned fish native to the western Atlantic Ocean and the Gulf of Mexico.
"The captain steered the charter boat offshore, hoping we could catch some mingo and grouper before the afternoon storm."
American A member of an Iroquoian-speaking Native American group that migrated to the Ohio Country in the mid-18th century.
"The Mingo allied with other tribes during Lord Dunmore's War in an effort to protect their traditional hunting grounds."
Word Nuance & Usage
When capitalized, 'Mingo' refers to the historical Native American group of the Ohio Valley; in the Southern US, particularly around the Gulf of Mexico, lowercase 'mingo' refers to the vermilion snapper.
• Rhymes for mingo
Word Origin & Etymology
Derived from the Delaware Algonquian word 'mengwe', meaning 'treacherous' or 'stealthy', which was used as a pejorative term for Iroquoian peoples by their Algonquian neighbors.
Usage Trend
Historical frequency of usage in published text.