Word
cherokee
Phoneticschero·kee
/ˈtʃɛɹəˌki/
Definitions
01the people
n. a person who belongs to the Cherokee nation, one of the largest Native American groups.
n. a member of the Cherokee people, an indigenous nation originally from the southeastern United States and later forcibly relocated to Oklahoma.
“The artist is a proud Cherokee who uses traditional patterns in her modern paintings.”
“Many Cherokee families today are working to preserve their cultural heritage and ancestral stories for future generations.”
03relating to the people or language
adj. related to the Cherokee people, their culture, or their language.
adj. of or relating to the Cherokee people, their culture, or their specific linguistic traditions.
“We visited a museum to see a collection of Cherokee baskets and tools.”
“The exhibit featured several Cherokee artifacts that demonstrated the sophisticated social structure of the nation before European contact.”
Etymology
Most likely from the Cherokee autonym ᏣᎳᎩ (tsalagi). Derivation from a Choctaw exonym meaning "those who live in caves" (compare chiluk (“cave”)) has also been suggested — the Iroquois term for the Cherokee was Oyata'ge'ronon (“inhabitants of the cave country”) — as has derivation from a Creek term for "person(s) who speak(s) a non-Creek language" (see celokketv (“to speak a non-creek language”)). Whatever its origin, the ethnonym entered European languages at an early date, perhaps as early as the 1670s; in Spanish, the people are called the Tchalaquei as early as 1755.
Etymology adapted from Wiktionary, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.
Scan code
englishreference.com/q/cherokee