Whence
Skunk (the word)
Word

Where does Skunk (the word) come from?

The word skunk comes from southern New England. English settlers took it in the 1630s from an Algonquian language spoken there, probably Massachusett, and its ancient root refers to the animal's famous spray.

A name from the spray

The early English forms were squunck and squuncke. Etymonline traces the word to a southern New England Algonquian language, perhaps Massachusett, and Merriam-Webster to a Massachusett form. Both take it back to Proto-Algonquian *šeka:kwa, built from *šek-, 'to urinate', and *-a:kw, 'fox' or 'fox-like animal'. So the name describes a fox-like animal known for what it sprays. A skunk can aim that spray accurately as far as 3 metres, and people can smell it up to 5.6 kilometres downwind.

From settlers' notes into English

The first English colonies in New England, Plymouth in 1620 and Massachusetts Bay in 1629, were founded in Massachusett-speaking country, and some colonists learned the language for trade. Merriam-Webster dates the first known use of skunk in English to 1634. Europeans sometimes called the animal after the polecat, its distant cousin, and in the southern United States polecat is still a nickname for it. By 1831 to skunk meant to defeat someone completely in a game, and from 1841 skunk was also an insult for a contemptible person.

The language behind the word

Massachusett was spoken by several peoples of eastern coastal and southeastern Massachusetts. In a simplified form it served as a trade language across New England and Long Island until the end of the 17th century. Epidemics, the loss of land and the pressure to use English pushed it out of use, and its last speakers died in the late 19th century. In 1993 Jessie Little Doe Baird, of the Mashpee Wampanoag, began a project to bring the language back, and by 2014 it had five native speakers again.

Sources: etymonline.com ↗ · merriam-webster.com ↗ · en.wikipedia.org › Skunk ↗ · en.wikipedia.org › Massachusett language ↗

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