Meanings
- historicalA former village in Manhattan, New York City, New York County, New York State, United States; a settlement of freed slaves and other African Americans, also containing non-WASP European immigrants, demolished to make way for Central Park.
The preacher grandfather had been one of the Seneca Village elders, ministering to the free Negro community downtown.
2021, Colson Whitehead, Harlem Shuffle, Fleet, page 68
Origin
- Algonquian
- DutchSennecaas
- PortugueseSenegal
- LatinSeneca
- EnglishSeneca Village
Seneca+village. Unknown. Possibly from Latin Seneca; or from Portuguese Senegal of unknown West African origin; or from Dutch Sennecaas from Algonquian indigenous American term. The Seneca were a native tribe found in the Dutch colony of New Netherlands, which may have been an origin of the name. There had been a tradition of naming African American slaves with Classical names, which may give rise to the term Seneca. The freed slaves may have had a memory of their origin in West Africa and the locale name Senegal.
More words from Latin, Portuguese, Dutch
Full word history & related roots →Cite this entry
Seneca Village. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 4, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/Seneca%20Village
“Seneca Village.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/Seneca%20Village. Accessed November 4, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “Seneca Village,” accessed November 4, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/Seneca%20Village.
Source: Seneca Village on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.