Sami

//ˈsɑːmi// adj, name, noun

adj, name, noun ·Uncommon ·College level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    A member of an indigenous Finno-Ugric people of Lapland.
  2. 2
    Alternative form of swami. alt-of, alternative
  3. 3
    At West Point, a Saturday morning inspection of a cadet's room.

    "Cadets loathe SAMIs because they are the most stringent of all inspections."

  4. 4
    the language of nomadic Lapps in northern Scandinavia and the Kola Peninsula wordnet
  5. 5
    a member of an indigenous nomadic people living in northern Scandinavia and herding reindeer wordnet
Adjective
  1. 1
    Relating to the Sami people of northern Scandinavia, or the Sami languages. not-comparable
Proper Noun
  1. 1
    The Sami people, collectively.
  2. 2
    A male given name from Arabic, feminine equivalent Samiyah.
  3. 3
    A diminutive of the female given name Samantha.
  4. 4
    Any of the languages of the Sami people. countable

Synonyms

All synonyms
lapplaplanderlapplapp languagelappiclapplander

Example

More examples

"Semisolid snow that will barely hold a person, coarse snow with a hard, rugged crust and light, fluffy lying snow. There are Sami words for these and hundreds more types of snow."

Etymology

Etymology 1

From Northern Sami Sápmi, from one of the Sami languages, of uncertain origin/meaning, but possibly related to Proto-Balto-Slavic *źémē (“land”). More at Sápmi and Sami.

Etymology 2

Derived from Arabic سَامِي (sāmī), from the informal pronunciation of سَامٍ (sāmin, “high, exalted”).

Etymology 3

From Samantha.

Etymology 4

Borrowed from Tamil சாமி (cāmi).

Related phrases

Akkala SamiInari SamiKemi SamiKildin SamiLule SamiNorth SamiPite SamiSkolt SamiSouthern SamiTer SamiUme Samifinno ugric

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