squaw
noun/skwɔː/
Etymology From Massachusett squàw (“woman”), from Proto-Algonquian *eθkwe·wa (“(young) woman”). Cognate with Abenaki -skwa (“female, wife”), Mohegan-Pequot sqá, Cree iskwew / ᐃᐢᑫᐧᐤ (iskeyw, “woman”), Ojibwe ikwe (“woman”). In the 1970s, some non-linguists began to claim that the word originally meant vagina; this has been discredited. The first English attestation of the word is found in a book called Mourt’s Relation: A Journey of the Pilgrims at Plymouth written in 1622, where the "squa sachim or Massachusets Queen" is mentioned in a journal entry from September 20, 1621.
- The Indian maids, of course, turned out to be a few fat old squaws who knew all about white men.1963, Lester del Rey, The Sky Is Falling:
- Derived terms
- oldsquaw, squawberry, squawbush, squaw candy, squaw carpet, squawdom, squaw dress, squawfish, squaw flower, Squaw Grove, squaw huckleberry, squawlike, squaw man, squaw mint, squawroot, squaw tea, Squaw Valley, squaw vine, squawvine, squawweed, squaw winter