squaw

The story

1. Proto-Algonquian · derived from*eθkwe·wa“(young) woman”
2. Massachusett · borrowed fromsquàw“woman”
3. English todaysquaw

From Massachusett squàw (“woman”), from Proto-Algonquian *eθkwe·wa (“(young) woman”). Cognate with Abenaki -skwa (“female, wife”), Mohegan-Pequot sqá, Cree iskwew / ᐃᐢᑫᐧᐤ (iskeyw, “woman”), Ojibwe ikwe (“woman”). In the 1970s, some non-linguists began to claim that the word originally meant “vagina”; this has been discredited. The first English attestation of the word is found in a book called Mourt’s Relation: A Journey of the Pilgrims at Plymouth written in 1622, where the "squa sachim or Massachusets Queen" is mentioned in a journal entry from September 20, 1621.