Eskimo
pronunciation
How to pronounce Eskimo in British English:
UK [ˈeskɪməʊ]
How to pronounce Eskimo in American English:
US [ˈeskɪmoʊ]
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- Noun:
- a member of a people inhabiting the Arctic (northern Canada or Greenland or Alaska or eastern Siberia); the Algonquians called them Eskimo (`eaters of raw flesh') but they call themselves the Inuit (`the people')
- the language spoken by the Eskimo people
Word Origin
- Eskimo (n.)
- 1580s, from Danish Eskimo or Middle French Esquimaux (plural), both probably from an Algonquian word, such as Abenaki askimo (plural askimoak), Ojibwa ashkimeq, traditionally said to mean literally "eaters of raw meat," from Proto-Algonquian *ask- "raw" + *-imo "eat." Research from 1980s in linguistics of the region suggests this derivation, though widely credited there, might be inaccurate or incomplete, and the word might mean "snowshoe-netter." See also Innuit. Of language, from 1819. As an adjective by 1744. Eskimo pie "chocolate-coated ice cream bar" introduced 1922 and was initially a craze that drove up the price of cocoa beans on the New York market 50 percent in three months [F.L. Allen, "Only Yesterday," 1931].
Example
- 1. A row of eskimo children slide on the slippery skull bone .
- 2. The first chocolate ice cream bar was called the i-scream bar but later its name was changed to the eskimo pie .
- 3. Disappearing sea ice may spell the end of the last eskimo cultures , but hardly anyone lives in an igloo these days anyway .
- 4. The surprising answer is that they are genetically distinct both from today 's native americans ( american indians ) and from the current eskimo population of greenland and the canadian arctic .
- 5. It 's a very 19th-century colonialist view , which was a time when people were trying to figure out why english or french were better than swahili or eskimo .