Shoshones

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Sho·sho·ne

also Sho·sho·ni (shō-shō′nē)

n. pl. Shoshone or Sho·sho·nes also Shoshoni or Sho·sho·nis

1. A member of a Native American people formerly inhabiting parts of Idaho, northern Utah, eastern Oregon, and western Montana, with a present-day population mostly in southeast Idaho. Also called Northern Shoshone, Snake¹.

2. A member of a Native American people formerly inhabiting the Great Basin area of Idaho, Utah, and Nevada south to Death Valley, California, with a present-day population mostly in Nevada. Also called Western Shoshone.

3. A member of a Native American people inhabiting the Wind River valley of western Wyoming. Also called Eastern Shoshone, Wind River Shoshone.

4. Any of the Uto-Aztecan languages of any of the Shoshone peoples.

[Probably from an Eastern Shoshone band name.]

Sho·sho′ne·an adj.

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright © 2016 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

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References in classic literature ?

Lay a row of moccasins before me - Pawnee, Sioux, Shoshone, Cheyenne, Blackfoot, and as many other tribes as you please - and I can name the tribe every moccasin belongs to by the make of it.

View in context

Stamm IV (adjunct professor of American Indian History, Idaho State University in Pocatello) presents People of the Wind River: The Eastern Shoshones 1825-1900, a historical chronicle of the Eastern Shoshones from 1825, when they came to mutual accommodations with the first permanent white American settlers in the their land, to 1900, when the passing of Chief Washakie heralded the end of their traditional lifestyle as Plains Indians.

The Military Shelf

His grandfather was one of many Arapahos and Shoshones who acted in a silent film on location in the 1920's and then went on to Hollywood to help promote the movie.

The Silent Spirit

New additions include Charlotte Wilcox's THE SEMINOLES (0822528487) and IROQUOIS (0822526379), Alison Blake's THE APACHES (0822559153), Michelle Levine's THE OJIBWE (0822559102), DELAWARE (0822559145), CHEROKEES (0822524430) and SIOUX (0822528649), Liz Sonneborn's THE CHOCTAWS (0822559110) and NAVAJOS (0822524457), SHOSHONES (0822528495), CHUMASH (0822559129) and CREEK (0822559137).

Lerner Publications

Sacajawea, modest princess of the Shoshones, heroine of the great expedition, stood with her babe in arms and smiled upon them from the shore.

Red woman, white dreams: searching for Sacagawea

Sacajawea's People: The Lemhi Shoshones and the Salmon River Country, by John W.

Sacajawea's People: The Lemhi Shoshones and the Salmon River Country

Some--not all--of the Western Shoshones' grievances have merit.

Shoshone Indians ask for UN intervention

The author, when the evidence seems clear cut, identifies those peoples, such as the Shoshones of the Great Plains, who carried Variola into the midst of other population groups during the 1775-82 plague.

Pox Americana: The Great Smallpox Epidemic of 1775-82

This would allow Lewis and Clark to converse with the Shoshones when they reached the tribe's territory.

She of Myth and Memory : The Remarkable Legend of Sacagawea

Charbonneau would translate it to Hidatsu, the language of the Shoshones. Hidatsu was spoken throughout the Upper Midwest.

[Winning the war of words]: At a time of international conflict, language can make or break peace

(58) Superintendent Doty wrote immediately after the massacre that "the battle with the Shoshones ...

The Lemhi Shoshoni

The Dann sisters are Western Shoshones who have waged a twenty-five-year battle with the federal government.