noun ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun

1. 1
   Beads or shells, especially as placed on strings and valued as ornaments or a sort of currency.

Synonyms

All synonyms

wampumwampum

Etymology

Borrowed from Chinook Jargon hywka, hyakwa, from Nootka.

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