Pocasset

English

Etymology

Algonquian.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /pəˈkɑs.ət/

Noun

Pocasset (plural Pocassets or Pocasset)

1. A (member of a) Native American tribe, the Fall River Wampanoag.
   • 1862, Orin Fowler, History of Fall River: With Notices of Freetown and Tiverton, page 26:

     Among the patriots of that period, the name of a native of the Pocasset tribe must be enrolled. While the British army had possession of the island of Rhode Island, in 1777, General Prescott, the chief in command of that army, quartered at a ...

   • 2018, Pauline Turner Strong, Captive Selves, Captivating Others: The Politics And Poetics Of Colonial American Captivity Narratives, Routledge, →ISBN, page 91:

     Offering refuge to the Pocassets turned out to be disastrous for the Narragansetts. Shortly before the main body of Pocassets arrived among the Narragansetts, on July 15, 1675, the United Colonies had coerced four obscure Narragansetts […]

   • 2010, Daniel R. Mandell, King Philip's War: Colonial Expansion, Native Resistance, and the End of Indian Sovereignty, JHU Press, →ISBN, page 54:

     The English considered the Pocassets one of the strongest groups in the area; Nathaniel Saltonstall called Weetamoo “as Potent a Prince as any round about her, and hath as much Corn, Land, and Men at her Command.”

Proper noun

Pocasset

1. A village in Massachusetts.
   • 2003, Andrew T. Eldredge, Railroads of Cape Cod and the Islands, Arcadia Publishing, →ISBN, page 83:

     Railroad Station, Pocasset, Mass. THE POCASSET RAILROAD STATION. This postcard shows the Pocasset station and freight house on the Woods Hole branch . The station was originally called Wenaumet, and the Pocasset station was ...

2. A place in Rhode Island.

Further reading

• 2004, William Bright, Native American Placenames of the United States, University of Oklahoma Press, →ISBN, page 387:

  POCASSET (Mass., Barnstable Co.) […] SNEng. Algonquian, perhaps from <pok- shau> 'it divides' plus <-et> 'place' […]