Pawnee

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Paw·nee

(pô-nē′)

n. pl. Pawnee or Paw·nees

1. A member of a Native American people formerly inhabiting the Platte River valley in south-central Nebraska and northern Kansas, with a present-day population in north-central Oklahoma. The Pawnee comprised a confederation of four relatively independent tribes living in permanent villages.

2. The Caddoan language of the Pawnee.

[North American French Pani, of Illinois origin, ultimately of Siouan origin.]

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.

Pawnee

(pɔːˈniː)

npl -nees or -nee

1. (Peoples) a member of a confederacy of related North American Indian peoples, formerly living in Nebraska and Kansas, now chiefly in Oklahoma

2. (Languages) the language of these peoples, belonging to the Caddoan family

Collins English Dictionary – Complete and Unabridged, 12th Edition 2014 © HarperCollins Publishers 1991, 1994, 1998, 2000, 2003, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2011, 2014

Paw•nee

(pɔˈni)

n., pl. -nees, (esp. collectively) -nee.

1. a member of an American Indian people living along the Platte River and its tributaries in Nebraska during the first half of the 19th century: confined to a reservation in the Indian Territory in 1874–75.

2. the Caddoan language of the Pawnees, closely related to Arikara.

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Noun	1.	Pawnee - a member of the Pawnee nation formerly living in Nebraska and Kansas but now largely in Oklahoma Caddo - a group of Plains Indians formerly living in what is now North and South Dakota and Nebraska and Kansas and Arkansas and Louisiana and Oklahoma and Texas
	2.	Pawnee - the Caddoan language spoken by the Pawnee Caddoan, Caddoan language, Caddo - a family of North American Indian languages spoken widely in the Midwest by the Caddo

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References in classic literature ?

The Pawnee republicans had inflicted a gross indignity on a favorite and distinguished Omaha brave.

The Omahas were once one of the numerous and powerful tribes of the prairies, vying in warlike might and prowess with the Sioux, the Pawnees, the Sauks, the Konsas, and the Iatans.

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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.

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Being liberated, he engaged with the Spaniards and Sioux Indians in a war against the Pawnees; then returned to Missouri, and had acted by turns as sheriff, trader, trapper, until he was enlisted as a leader by Captain Bonneville.

The latter was squatted on his buffalo robe, his strong features and red skin glaring in the broad light of a blazing fire, while he recounted astounding tales of the bloody exploits of his tribe and himself in their wars with the Pawnees; for there are no old soldiers more given to long campaigning stories than Indian "braves."

The Kansas resemble the Osages in features, dress, and language; they raise corn and hunt the buffalo, ranging the Kansas River, and its tributary streams; at the time of the captain's visit, they were at war with the Pawnees of the Nebraska, or Platte River.

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"Have the pale-faces eaten their own buffaloes, and taken the skins from all their own beavers," continued the savage, allowing the usual moment of decorum to elapse, after the words of greeting, before he again spoke, "that they come to count how many are left among the Pawnees?"

"The Siouxes are thieves, and they live among the snow; why do we talk of a people who are so far, when we are in the country of the Pawnees?"

"If the Pawnees are the owners of this land, then white and red are here by equal right."

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A band of Pawnees or of Blackfeet may occasionally traverse it in order to reach other hunting-grounds, but the hardiest of the braves are glad to lose sight of those awesome plains, and to find themselves once more upon their prairies.

"We have passed the Pawnees, and there are no other tribes until we cross the great mountains."

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He had been listening to stories of attacks upon the trains by the Sioux and Pawnees. Mr.