Sioux

American  

[soo] / su /

noun

plural

Sioux

1. Dakota.

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Sioux British  

/ suː /

noun

1. a member of a group of North American Indian peoples formerly ranging over a wide area of the Plains from Lake Michigan to the Rocky Mountains

2. any of the Siouan languages

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Sioux Cultural  

1. A common name for the Dakota people, a tribe of Native Americans inhabiting the northern Great Plains in the nineteenth century. They were famed as warriors and frequently took up arms in the late nineteenth century to oppose the settlement of their hunting grounds and sacred places. In 1876, Sioux warriors, led by Chief Sitting Bull, and commanded in the field by Chief Crazy Horse, overwhelmed the United States cavalry at the Battle of the Little Bighorn. (See Custer's last stand.) A group of Sioux under Chief Big Foot were massacred by United States troops at Wounded Knee in 1890.

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Etymology

Origin of Sioux

An Americanism dating back to 1755–65; from North American French, shortening of earlier Nadouessioux from Ojibwe (Ottawa dialect) na·towe·ssiw(ak) (plural), from unattested Proto-Algonquian na·towe·hsiw-, derivative of unattested na·towe·wa ”Iroquoian,” probably literally, “speaker of a foreign language”) + French -x plural marker