Meanings
- A cliff in the Rocky Mountains of Alberta which is classified as a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
Synonyms: Head-Smashed-In
Synonyms & antonyms
proper nounA cliff in the Rocky Mountains of Alberta which is classified as a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
Origin
- BlackfootÁísttsiipakihkínikottsi
- EnglishHead-Smashed-In Buffalo Jump
Calque of Blackfoot Áísttsiipakihkínikottsi (literally “painfully stuffed [by] striking [onto the] head”). Etymology notes The source word in Blackfoot either refers to the millenia-old practice of buffalo hunting — made possible by sending the animal in large herds down a cliff — or to the oral tale of how the buffalo jump got its name. According to the University of Calgary, 150 years ago, a young Blackfoot man wanted to see the fall of the buffalo from below, but the hunt was so successful that day that he would end up buried down the corpses. When their relatives digged to take food back home, they have found his body, with his head smashed.
More words from Blackfoot
Full word history & related roots →Cite this entry
Head-Smashed-In Buffalo Jump. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 4, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/Head-Smashed-In%20Buffalo%20Jump
“Head-Smashed-In Buffalo Jump.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/Head-Smashed-In%20Buffalo%20Jump. Accessed November 4, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “Head-Smashed-In Buffalo Jump,” accessed November 4, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/Head-Smashed-In%20Buffalo%20Jump.
Source: Head-Smashed-In Buffalo Jump on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.