Potawatomi

noun

Pot·​a·​wat·​o·​mi ˌpä-tə-ˈwä-tə-mē 

variants or less commonly Potawatami or Pottawattomi or Pottawattami

1

plural Potawatomi or Potawatomis also Potawatami or Potawatamis or Pottawattomi or Pottawattomis or Pottawattami or Pottawattamis : a member of an Indigenous people originally of the Lower Peninsula of Michigan and adjoining states

2

: the Algonquian language of the Potawatomi people

Examples of Potawatomi in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web

Present-day Michigan is the ancestral homeland of the Ojibwe, Odawa and Potawatomi, Anishinaabe peoples forming the historic Council of Three Fires alliance, with the Indigenous presence pre-dating European settlements by more than 10,000 years. —Jenna Prestininzi, Freep.com, 5 Nov. 2025

The family's hope for a political solution has been renewed after Illinois recently returned land to the Prairie Band Potawatomi Nation. —Frank Vaisvilas, jsonline.com, 29 Oct. 2025

Pyet DeSpain, a Kansas City native and PBS food show host, is a member of the Potawatomi Nation and has Mexican roots. —Mara Williams, Kansas City Star, 29 Oct. 2025

In her 2013 book Braiding Sweetgrass, Potawatomi botanist Robin Wall Kimmerer explained that these crops thrive together because maize provides a trellis-like framework for nitrogen-fixing beans to grow on while the low-lying squash provides a productive ground cover crop. —JSTOR Daily, 14 Oct. 2025

The Ice Age Trail stretches across the state, from Interstate State Park in St. Croix Falls on the Minnesota border to Potawatomi State Park on the shores of Sturgeon Bay. —Evie Carrick, Travel + Leisure, 22 Sep. 2025

Many of the examples are stark, like the Potawatomi Nation which had negotiated with the federal government in hopes of staying in their homelands in the upper Midwest. —Chris Quintana, USA Today, 6 Sep. 2025

What to know about the Potawatomi Zoo Where is the Potawatomi Zoo? —Katie Wiseman, IndyStar, 10 July 2025

Word History

Etymology

borrowed from Ojibwa po·te·wa·tami· (boodewaadamii), corresponding to the Potawatomi self-designation potewatmi, of uncertain origin

Note: According to the Handbook of North American Indians, vol. 15, Northeast (Smithsonian Institution, 1978), p. 741: "This word is an unanalyzable name with no known literal meaning, and the commonly cited translation 'people of the place of the fire' is merely a folk etymology (Goddard 1972:131 [Ives Goddard, "Historical and Philological Evidence regarding the Identification of the Mascouten," Ethnohistory, vol. 19, no. 2, Spring, 1972, pp. 123-34]). There is certainly no connection with ško·te 'fire', and the vowel differences rule out derivation from Ojibwa po·tawe· 'makes a fire'."

First Known Use

1698, in the meaning defined at sense 1

Rhymes for Potawatomi

• tracheostomy
• bonhomie
• naomi
• salome
• colostomy
• lobotomy
• foamy
• homey
• komi
• loamy