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Chey·enne 1 (shī-ĕn, -ăn)
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n. pl. Cheyenneor Chey·ennes
1. A member of a Native American people, divided after 1832 into the Northern and Southern Cheyenne, inhabiting respectively southeast Montana and southern Colorado, with present-day populations in Montana and Oklahoma. The Cheyenne became nomadic buffalo hunters after migrating to the Great Plains in the 18th century and figured prominently in the resistance by Plains Indians to white encroachment.
2. The Algonquian language of the Cheyenne.

[Canadian French, from Dakota Šahíyela; akin to Lakota Šahíyela, Cheyenne : Lakota Šahíya, Cree (the Lakota word possibly being of Algonquian origin and originally referring to other Algonquian peoples; compare Cheyenne S´hea'eo'o, Ojibwe) + Lakota -la, diminutive suffix (equivalent to Dakota -na).]

Chey·enne adj.

The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition copyright ©2022 by HarperCollins Publishers. All rights reserved.
 
Chey·enne 2 (shī-ăn, -ĕn)
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The capital of Wyoming, in the southeast part of the state near the Nebraska and Colorado borders. It was founded in 1867 as a division point for the Union Pacific Railroad.

The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition copyright ©2022 by HarperCollins Publishers. All rights reserved.
 

Indo-European & Semitic Roots Appendices

    Thousands of entries in the dictionary include etymologies that trace their origins back to reconstructed proto-languages. You can obtain more information about these forms in our online appendices:

    Indo-European Roots

    Semitic Roots

    The Indo-European appendix covers nearly half of the Indo-European roots that have left their mark on English words. A more complete treatment of Indo-European roots and the English words derived from them is available in our Dictionary of Indo-European Roots.