Athabascan

adj, name, noun

adj, name, noun ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    Any member of these peoples.
  2. 2
    a group of Amerindian languages (the name coined by an American anthropologist, Edward Sapir) wordnet
  3. 3
    a member of any of the North American Indian groups speaking an Athapaskan language and living in the subarctic regions of western Canada and central Alaska wordnet
Adjective
  1. 1
    Pertaining to a group of peoples mostly inhabiting Alaska, western Canada, the Pacific coast of California and Oregon, and the Navajo and Apache peoples in the American Southwest. not-comparable

    "“I’d like to thank the president for working with us to achieve this significant change to show honour, respect and gratitude to the Athabascan people of Alaska,” said Senator Lisa Murkowski, a Republican who led the fight for the name change in Congress."

Proper Noun
  1. 1
    The family of languages spoken by these peoples.

Example

More examples

"“I’d like to thank the president for working with us to achieve this significant change to show honour, respect and gratitude to the Athabascan people of Alaska,” said Senator Lisa Murkowski, a Republican who led the fight for the name change in Congress."

Etymology

From Athabasca + -an, from Cree Ahđapaskâw (literally “where there are plants distributed in a net-like pattern”).

Related phrases

Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.