Navajo

or Nav·a·ho

[ nav-uh-hoh, nah-vuh- ]

noun

, plural Nav·a·jos, Nav·a·joes, (especially collectively) Nav·a·jo

1. Also called Diné. a member of the most populous nation of the southern division of Athabascan Native Americans, located in New Mexico, Arizona, and Utah, and now constituting the largest tribal group in the United States.
2. the Athabascan language of the Navajo.

adjective

1. Also . of, relating to, or characteristic of the Navajo, their language, or their culture:

   a Navajo blanket.

Word History and Origins

Origin of Navajo¹

First recorded in 1800–10; from American Spanish Apaches de Nabajú “Apaches of Nabajú” (Navajo and several Apachean languages are mutually intelligible), originally a place name applied to the Largo Canyon region of the Four Corners area of northwest New Mexico, from Tewa navahu “large arroyo with cultivated fields”; Diné ( def )

Example Sentences

Arizona Secretary of State Adrian Fontes said Tuesday afternoon that his office was monitoring “unsubstantiated” bomb threats at four locations in Navajo Nation.

From Los Angeles Times

There’s the one in Gallup, N.M., perpetually packed with buses from the nearby Navajo and Zuni nations.

From Los Angeles Times

Interior Secretary Deb Haaland — the first Indigenous woman in a presidential cabinet and “the auntie of all aunties,” as one community leader put it — spent a recent weekend in Navajo Nation.

From Los Angeles Times

Wherever they came from, they exploded in popularity on the Navajo reservation around 2018.

From Los Angeles Times

To the Navajo “the summit that never melts” was a place where deities lived.

From Los Angeles Times