Word.ws English Dictionary

cawquaw

cawquaw noun: a Canadian porcupine (Erethizon dorsatum).

Noun

cawquaw (plural not attested)

  1. (dated, no plural, possibly, rare) A Canadian porcupine (Erethizon dorsatum).
    • The Cawquaw or Urson of North America also inhabits trees. It has not, however, a prehensile tail, that member being merely used as a weapon of offence, the short, sharp quills witb which it is armed sticking in the wounds […]1872, Samuel Orchart Beeton, Beeton's Brave tales, bold ballads, and travels and perils, page 540

Origin of cawquaw

From Cree kâkwa / ᑳᑲᐧ (kaakay, “porcupine”).

Questions about cawquaw

What does cawquaw mean?
Cawquaw means a Canadian porcupine (Erethizon dorsatum).
What part of speech is cawquaw?
Cawquaw is a noun.

Words near cawquaw in the dictionary

  1. cawny
  2. Cawongan
  3. Cawongla
  4. Cawood
  5. Cawoods
  6. cawquaw
  7. caws
  8. Cawson
  9. Cawston
  10. Cawstons
  11. Cawte

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: cawquaw (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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