Cheyenne
noun/ʃaɪˈæn/ · /ʃaɪˈeə̯n/
Etymology Borrowed from French Cheyenne, from Dakota šahíyena, from Dakota šaia (“to speak incoherently”), from Dakota ša (“red”) and Dakota ya (“to speak”).
1
A member of an indigenous people of the Great Plains in North America.
- You will want to tell him that you are Cheyenne, that that is where you are from, that Cheyennes once, up near the Great Lakes, were agricultural people, and then followed the buffalo before running for their lives like the buffalo, and that your people, they were Cheyenne wherever they went, but instead you just say the word Cheyenne, with your hand over your heart, to which he will say the word Lakota with his hand over his heart.2024, Tommy Orange, Wandering Stars, Harvill Secker, page 108:
- Derived terms
- Cheyenne County