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american indian

noun · adjective

Simple meaning

An indigenous person from the United States.

Pronunciation

Say it like this:

uhmehruhkuhnindeeuhn

Say the bold part a little louder.

US device voice
IPA pronunciation (US)

əˈmɛɹəkəˈnɪndiən

This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.

IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.

Word Review

Definition

Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.

noun

  1. A member of some indigenous peoples of the Americas, especially the continental United States, but excluding the Inuit, Yupik, and Aleuts.

  2. canada

    An indigenous person from the United States.

adjective

  1. Relating to the indigenous peoples of the Americas or their languages.

Word Aura™

How this word commonly comes across.

Aura for this meaning

This meaning: A member of some indigenous peoples of the Americas, especially the continental United States, but excluding the Inuit, Yupik, and Aleuts.

Used this way, american indian is a reasonably familiar word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. It usually sounds natural in a wide range of settings.

Emotional tone
Neutral
Formality
Neutral
Intensity
Not strongly marked
How common
Moderately common
Connotation
Matter-of-fact
Usage feel
Neutral and straightforward

Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.

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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.