Mahican

[ muh-hee-kuhn ]

noun,plural Ma·hi·cans, (especially collectively) Ma·hi·can for 1, 2.
  1. a tribe or confederacy of North American Indians of the Algonquian family, centralized formerly in the upper Hudson valley.

  2. a member of this tribe or confederacy.

  1. the extinct Algonquian language of the Mahican Indians.

Origin of Mahican

1
First recorded in 1605–15; self-designation of the Mahican people; literally, “person (people) of the tidal estuary (of the Hudson River)”; cognate with Munsee Delaware ma·hí·kan; compare -a·hi·kan in kihta·hí·kan “ocean,” with kiht- “great”); the spelling variant Mohican was popularized by James Fenimore Cooper's The Last of the Mohicans (1826)

Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2024

How to use Mahican in a sentence

  • Rodger's Island, on the east side, where the last battle was fought between the Mohawks and the Mahicans.

    The Hudson | Wallace Bruce
  • The Mahicans and Lenapes the "Mahicanituk," or "the ever-flowing waters."

    The Hudson | Wallace Bruce
  • Catskill was the southern boundary of the Mahicans on the west bank, and here they set up their emblem.

    The Hudson | Wallace Bruce

British Dictionary definitions for Mahican

Mahican

/ (məˈhiːkən) /


nounplural -cans or -can
  1. a variant of Mohican

Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012