BY RIGO TESORO
STAFF WRITER
Tuxedo
Of all things, the word tuxedo came from a place name. The garment was first worn by an anonymous innovator at the country club in a New York resort town called Tuxedo Park. (So the coat was named after the park, not the other way around.) The place’s name came from the name of a local tribe, which appears to have come from another place name, the Munsee Delaware phrase p’tuck-sepo “crooked river”. (It’s not capitalized, because it’s just a sequence of normal words, but it appears to have to some extent referred to a specific place, like how “Newport”, Rhode Island is just “(our) new port (over here)”.)
(By the way, Munsee Delaware is a language, not some weird geographical term. Even though it’s “Delaware,” there were speakers of the language in the Tuxedo Park area. Many Native American groups’ names happen to have been appropriated for use as geographical words referring to places they weren’t even at.)
Source: tuxedo | Etymology, origin and meaning of tuxedo by etymonline
Squash
The word squash is an abbreviation of the Narragansett word askutasquash, which translates literally to “that which can be eaten raw,” or even more literally, “the raw-eatens.” This word is, unsurprisingly, askut (“raw)”, and asquash, (“eaten),” (-ash is the plural suffix “-s”). (Like what happened with tuxedo, Narragansett is a language.)
Source: squash | Etymology, origin and meaning of squash by etymonline
Menhaden
Yes, menhaden is a word, and yes, it’s in the English language. It refers to a certain kind of fish off the East Coast. Its etymology isn’t very long, but it is strange. Menhaden comes from the (probably) Narragansett word munnawhateaug, which, instead of talking about fish, translates literally to, of all things, “they fertilize.” It turns out the Native Americans in the area used them as fertilizer.
Source: menhaden | Etymology, origin and meaning of menhaden by etymonline
Chipmunk
The word chipmunk most likely comes from a dialectical Ojibwa word ajidamoonh, “red squirrel,” along with some influence from English chip and mink. That’s not surprising at all. But what is surprising is that ajidamoonh more literally translates to “head-first,” or even “that which descends trees upside down and head-first.” (If you’ve ever seen a chipmunk in action, you’ll know this is a typical behavior of theirs.)
Source: chipmunk | Etymology, origin and meaning of chipmunk by etymonline