Lenape

English

Mark Gould, chief of the Nanticoke Lenni-Lenape Tribal Nation, June 2016

Etymology

Borrowed from Unami Lënape / lënape.

Pronunciation

• (US) IPA^(key): /ləˈnɑːpi/

Noun

Lenape (plural Lenapes or Lenape)

1. A member of a group of aboriginal Americans who were living in what is now New Jersey and along the Delaware River in Pennsylvania, the coast of Delaware, and the lower Hudson Valley and New York Harbor in New York, at the time of the arrival of the Europeans in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.
   • 2020, N. K. Jemisin, The City We Became, Orbit, page 299:

     Endless generations of Lenape stretching down the lines of the past—changed, though not destroyed, by colonialism.

Synonyms

• (people): Leni-Lanape, Lenni-Lanape, Leni-Lenape, Lenni-Lenape, Delaware

Proper noun

Lenape

1. The languages (Munsee, Unami) spoken by all of this group; Delaware
2. The language spoken in the southern range of this group in coastal Delaware, southern New Jersey, and eastern Pennsylvania; Unami.

Synonyms

• (language group): Delaware
• (southern language): Unami

Derived terms

• Leni Lenape
• Lenni Lenape

Anagrams

• Pelean