This week's theme
Words borrowed from Native American languages

This week's words
sachem
wampum
high-muck-a-muck
manitou
powwow

This week's comments
AWADmail 103

Next week’s theme
Words borrowed from Spanish

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A.Word.A.Day

PRONUNCIATION:

(POU-wou)

MEANING:

noun:
1. A Native American ceremony featuring dances, feasting, fair, etc.
2. A Native American shaman.
3. A meeting, conference, or get-together.

verb intr.:
1. To hold a powwow.
2. To confer.

ETYMOLOGY:

From Narragansett powwaw (shaman).

USAGE:

"Putin himself went on a charm offensive Thursday at a meeting in the Kremlin with executives of more than a dozen leading Western and Russian investment banks. The unprecedented powwow came less than an hour after prosecutors announced they had seized the Yukos shares as collateral for the $1 billion Khodorkovsky allegedly cost the state."
Catherine Belton; Kremlin Tempers Attack on Yukos; Moscow Times (Russia); Nov 3, 2003.

"At one point during the annual sales powwow at a San Francisco convention center in August, a wizened (John) Chambers came out from behind the podium to be closer to the 10,000 salespeople."
Peter Burrows; Cisco's Comeback; Businessweek (New York); Nov 24, 2003.

A THOUGHT FOR TODAY: