Word.ws English Dictionary

Chippewa

Chippewa noun: a member of the Ojibwe people.

Noun

Chippewa (plural Chippewas or Chippewa)

  1. (US) A member of the Ojibwe people.
    • The Anishinaabe people are American Indians who have historically been associated with the Great Lakes region of what is now called Canada and the United States. The Anishinaabe people of the Great Lakes include the Odawas (also known as the Ottawas), the Chippewas (also known as the Ojibwes), and...2022 May 5, Arland Thornton, Alphonse Pitawanakwat, Eric Hemenway, Lindsey Willow Smith, Linda Young DeMarco, Anishinaabe Geography in the 1930 Decennial Census—and the Use of this Geography in...

Proper noun

Chippewa

  1. (US) The Ojibwe language.
    • All of these jobs and titles could be expressed in Chippewa. It was much better than English for invention, and irony could be added to any word with a simple twist.2020, Louise Erdrich, The Night Watchman, Corsair (2021), page 119
  2. Any of four rivers, one each in Michigan, Minnesota, and Wisconsin, and a river in Ontario.

Forms of Chippewa

pluralChippewas
pluralChippewa
alternative formChippeway
alternative formChippewe

Origin of Chippewa

From Ojibwe ojibwe (“Ojibwe”)/ᐅᒋᑉᐌ, specifically an eastern dialect with a reduced initial vowel. Compare earlier Ojibwa. Attested in English from the mid 18th century.

Words formed from Chippewa

Questions about Chippewa

What does Chippewa mean?
Chippewa means a member of the Ojibwe people.
What part of speech is Chippewa?
Chippewa can be a noun or a proper noun.
What is the plural of Chippewa?
The plural of Chippewa is Chippewas.

Words near Chippewa in the dictionary

  1. chipperly
  2. chipperness
  3. chippers
  4. chippers up
  5. chippery
  6. Chippewa
  7. Chippewa County
  8. Chippewa Falls
  9. Chippewaian
  10. Chippewan
  11. Chippewans

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: Chippewa (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.

Last updated:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Flame, not lame-Chippewa.wav.

Cite this entry: “Chippewa.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/chippewa. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.