Native Americans and First Nations people, who spoke a language of the Algonquian group, were the first to meet English explorers in North America. So many words from these languages entered English:
- caribou (“snow-shoveler”)
- chipmunk (“red squirrel”)
- moccasin
- moose
- muskrat
- opossum (“white dog”)
- pecan (“nut”)
- powwow (“to dream, to have a vision”)
- raccoon, skunk (“to urinate” + “fox”)
- woodchuck
