Word.ws English Dictionary

Iroquois

/ˈɪɹ.ə.kwɔɪ/

More pronunciations (1)Fewer pronunciations

Canada/ˈɪɹ.ə.kwɑː/

Iroquois noun: a member of a confederacy of (originally) five Native American (Indian) tribes: the Mohawks, the Oneidas, the Onondagas, the Cayugas, and the Senecas.

Noun

Iroquois (plural Iroquois)

  1. A member of a confederacy of (originally) five Native American (Indian) tribes: the Mohawks, the Oneidas, the Onondagas, the Cayugas, and the Senecas.
    Synonyms:
    Iroquese
  2. A kind of hairdo where both sides of the head are shaved, leaving only a stripe of hair in the middle.

Proper noun

Iroquois

  1. Any of the languages of the Iroquois, belonging to the Iroquoian family of languages.

Adjective

Iroquois

  1. Of or pertaining to the Iroquois confederacy, its people, language, or culture.
    Synonyms:
    Iroquese

Iroquois meaning in Marathi, Tagalog and Persian

Iroquois in Marathi

a person belonging to an Iroquois tribe
इरोक्वा irokvā
language
इरोक्वा irokvā

Iroquois in Tagalog

a person belonging to an Iroquois tribe
Irokes
language
Irokes

Iroquois in Persian

a person belonging to an Iroquois tribe
ایروکوا irokovâ

Synonyms of Iroquois

Forms of Iroquois

pluralIroquois

Origin of Iroquois

Attested in American English since the 1660s, from French Iroquois, Hiroquois (attested since the early 1600s). The ultimate origin is uncertain. theories Missionary Charles Arnaud derived it from Montagnais irno-kué (“terrible people”). Linguist Gordon Day notes that though no form irno "person" is attested, one is plausible (given iriniou and ilnu), but application to a non-Montagnais is unlikely, and kué is too short: the root is kwet-. Day finds support for a longer form kwedɛč ("an Iroquois", lit. "terrible, frightening person") in Pacifique's Micmac grammar, in "goetètjg", and sees "fairly good indications that the name [i.e. kwedɛč] was an ancient one for Iroquoian peoples generally", but then "irno kwedɛč" would awkwardly mean "a person, an Iroquois", which could not have been a usual term. Day theorizes the awkward phrase may nonetheless have been uttered by some interpreter and used thereafter by the unaware French, or alternatively the Montagnais may have borrowed an Iroquoian autonym whereafter Montagnais folk-etymologizers adapted it to resemble those words; for example, Mohawk i-ih rongwe (“man”) would have entered Montagnais as /iːrohkwe/. (Some earlier scholars...

Words formed from Iroquois

Phrases with Iroquois

Questions about Iroquois

What does Iroquois mean?
Iroquois means a member of a confederacy of (originally) five Native American (Indian) tribes: the Mohawks, the Oneidas, the Onondagas, the Cayugas, and the Senecas.
What is Iroquois in Marathi?
Iroquois in Marathi is इरोक्वा (irokvā). See Iroquois meaning in Marathi.
What part of speech is Iroquois?
Iroquois can be a noun, a proper noun or an adjective.
How do you pronounce Iroquois?
Iroquois is pronounced /ˈɪɹ.ə.kwɔɪ/.
What is the plural of Iroquois?
The plural of Iroquois is Iroquois.

Words near Iroquois in the dictionary

  1. Iroquoia
  2. Iroquoian
  3. Iroquoianist
  4. Iroquoianists
  5. Iroquoians
  6. Iroquois
  7. Iroquois Confederacy
  8. Iroquois County
  9. Iroquois Falls
  10. Iroquois League
  11. Iroquois Wars

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: Iroquois (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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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-us-Iroquois.ogg.

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