Mohawk

Meaning

1. Mohawk River, the largest tributary of the Hudson River, New York.
2. Alternative letter-case form of Mohawk.
3. The Iroquoian language spoken by these North American indigenous people.
4. A hairstyle where both sides are shaved, with the hair along the crest of the head kept long, and usually styled so as to stand straight up.
5. A member of an indigenous people of North America originally from the Mohawk Valley in upstate New York to southern Quebec and eastern Ontario, the easternmost of the Iroquois Five Nations.
6. A member of a gang (the Mohocks) that terrorized London in the early 18th century.

Etymology / origin

From Dutch Mohawk. An exonym, probably from Narragansett Mohowaúgsuck, Mauquàuog, meaning “they eat (animate things)”, “cannibals”. The phoneme /m/ is not present in the Mohawk language; the Mohawk autonym is Kanienʼkehá꞉kaʼ (Kanienkehaka, Kanyenkehaka).

Sources

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