Word.ws English Dictionary

orenda

/ɔˈɹɛn.də/

orenda noun: a mystical power thought by the Iroquois to pervade all things.

Noun

orenda (uncountable)

  1. A mystical power thought by the Iroquois to pervade all things.
    • In the Handbook of American Indians, Alice Fletcher describes the Iroquois conception of orenda as "a fictive force, principle, or magic power"1920, George Willis Cooke, The Social Evolution of Religion

Origin of orenda

Supposedly coined in 1902 by American ethnologist John Napoleon Brinton Hewitt using a Wyandot (Iroquoian) cognate to Mohawk orę́·naʔ (“inherent power”).

Words that rhyme with orenda

Questions about orenda

What does orenda mean?
Orenda means a mystical power thought by the Iroquois to pervade all things.
What part of speech is orenda?
Orenda is a noun.
How do you pronounce orenda?
Orenda is pronounced /ɔˈɹɛn.də/.

Words near orenda in the dictionary

  1. Oren
  2. Orenburg
  3. Orenburg gum
  4. orenche
  5. orenches
  6. orenda
  7. Orendain
  8. Orendains
  9. orendge
  10. orendges
  11. Orendorff

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: orenda (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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