kloochn.
/kluːtʃ/ north-west Amer.
An Indian woman. Also (variously spelt) ˈkloochman n.Quot. 1861 illustrates the erroneous form kloochwoman.
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klooch1837
1837 H. Beaver Let. 10 Mar. (1959) 38 ‘Klout-che-man’ is the term used to express the whole female sex, in whatever degree of relationship, whether rational or irrational.
1860 Brit. Colonist (Victoria, Brit. Columbia) 24 Mar. 2/3 About 75 Cape Flattery Indians arrived in canoes yesterday..on a visit to the Songish tribe, for the purpose of buying a clootchman for their chief.
1861 in C. Maiden Lighted Journey: Story of B.C. Electric (1948) 1 I perceived two clootch-vimmen a' standin' outside of a 'ouse, and they was a-laughing at me.
1865 G. Stuart Montana as it Is 83 Oregon is the place to hear the ‘Chinnook’ in all its glory; it has ‘played’ the English language ‘square out’ in that land of..‘cloockmans’ and camus.
1897 M. H. E. Hayne Pioneers of Klondyke 25 The klūtch (short for klūtchman, the local name for squaws) dress exactly like the men.
1901 Daily Colonist (Victoria, Brit. Columbia) 8 Oct. 3/1 Old klootchmen were to be seen with their arms filled with all kinds of goods.
1907 R. Dunn Shameless Diary of Explorer iv. 28 Starved dogs, half-naked children, shawled klootches, bucks in prospectors' old clothes, all gathered, stared, shook hands, clucked questions.
1907 R. W. Service Songs of Sourdough (1908) 75 I've sent my klooch to town, With a haggard face and a ribband of red entwined in her hair of brown.
1920 in Spectator 25 Dec. 846/1 I drive to the West where the Kloochmen are best.
1945 R. W. Service Ploughman of Moon 176 In the old days he had taken up with a klootchman, and had written home, saying he was married to an Indian Princess.
1945 R. W. Service Ploughman of Moon 176 On one side of me I had a klootch with a papoose tied to her back.
1956 Beaver Summer 44 The Indians had respected the promises of the Great White Queen—or as she was known—‘King George's Klootchman’—and they relied upon the word of the Hudson's Bay Company.
1966 H. Marriott Cariboo Cowboy vi. 58 An Indian ‘klootch’ with three kids playing around the tent.
1969 Islander (Victoria, Brit. Columbia) 31 Aug. 10/2 Jenny, a Klootchman as Indian women were called, washed, ironed, sewed on buttons and mended.
This entry has not yet been fully updated (first published 1933; most recently modified version published online December 2020).
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n.1837