nottaway
nottaway Lexical Profile
• adjective
North American Of or relating to the Nottaway people, an Iroquoian Native American tribe, or their culture and history.
"The researchers carefully documented early Nottaway cultural practices and their trade relations with neighboring coastal tribes."
Canadian Of or relating to the Nottaway River in Quebec, Canada, or the surrounding boreal geographic region.
"The Nottaway basin provides crucial habitats for various species of subarctic wildlife."
• noun
North American A member of an Iroquoian-speaking Native American people who originally inhabited the Piedmont region of southeastern Virginia.
"Many contemporary Nottaways are actively working to preserve their ancestral heritage and historical records."
Canadian A major river in the Canadian province of Quebec that flows northwesterly into James Bay.
North American The extinct Iroquoian language formerly spoken by the Nottaway people.
"Linguists have studied fragmentary historical vocabulary lists to reconstruct the grammatical structure of Nottaway."
Word Nuance & Usage
When referring to the Native American tribe or the county in Virginia, the word is most frequently spelled 'Nottoway', whereas 'Nottaway' is the standard spelling for the major river located in Quebec, Canada.
• Rhymes for nottaway
• Nearby Words
Word Origin & Etymology
Derived from the Algonquian exonym 'nadowe' or 'nãtowe', meaning 'snake' or 'enemy', a term historically applied by Algonquian speakers to various neighboring Iroquoian-speaking groups.