English
Idaho
Idaho may come from Plains Apache ídaahȩ́ ‘Comanche’.
- Plains Apachemodernídaahȩ́‘Comanche’uncertain
- Englishearliest quotation 2020Idaho
attested reconstructed ? uncertain or disputed
Lineage
- Plains Apachemodernídaahȩ́‘Comanche’uncertain
- Englishearliest quotation 2020Idaho
Earliest quotation: 2020, Harmeet Kaur: “Oregon’s uptick in marijuana sales along the Idaho border…”
The story
Uncertain; possibly from Plains Apache ídaahȩ́ (‘Comanche’), though the Oxford English Dictionary states that the development of the state’s name from that word remains undocumented.uncertain The source flags this step as uncertain. The name Idaho was said to have been considered around 1860 for what was eventually called the Colorado Territory (now the state of Colorado) in 1861, and in 1863 was given to Idaho County (now part of Idaho); the county was named after a steamship launched on the Columbia River in 1860. The eccentric political lobbyist George Maurice Willing, Jr. (c. 1829 – 1874) claimed to have coined the name after a girl named Ida, though saying it was a Shoshoni term meaning “gem of the mountains” (no such term exists), but evidence suggests that there was use of the name in Colorado pre-dating Willing’s arrival in the West in 1859. The common noun (‘type of potato’) is derived from the name of the state.
Every English word from Plains Apache ídaahȩ́
Today it means
name A state in the western United States. Capital and largest city: Boise.
Language periods are conventional ranges, not dates for this word.
Etymograph / Plains Apache ídaahȩ́ / Idaho