papoosen.
/pəˈpuːs/, U.S. /pæˈpus/ Originally and chiefly North American.† 2. Canadian. A young beaver; a beaver cub; (Newfoundland and Labrador) spec. a beaver cub up to one year old. Obsolete.
1. A young North American Indian child, esp. (in recent use) an infant carried in a papoose carrier. Now generally regarded as offensive.
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the world > people > ethnicities > division of mankind by physical characteristics > Amerindian > [noun] > child
papoose1634
1634 W. Wood New Englands Prospect ii. xix. 96 This little Pappouse travells about with his bare footed mother to paddle in the Icie Clammbankes.
1677 I. Mather Relation Troubles New-Eng. 59 They thought..to make the English believe that those base papooses, were of a royal progeny.
1711 in N. Bouton Provinc. Papers New-Hampsh. (1869) III. 477 Voted, That for..every minor or Papoose [slain], fifteen pounds be payd out of the Treasury.
1755 in Essex Inst. Hist. Coll. (1916) LII. 81 Gave a papous 5d.
1865 F. Parkman Champlain xii, in Pioneers of France in New World 348 Naked pappooses screamed and ran.
1890 L. C. D'Oyle Notches Rough Edge Life 28 Strapped in that queer contrivance in which squaws carry their papooses.
1930 R. W. Service Coll. Verse 262 Them hunter of moose an' squaw an' papoose jest laughed till their stummicks was sore.
1992 Beaver Aug. 33/2 The old Esquimaux woman looked very picturesque with a papoose on her back.
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1680 Hudson Bay Company Minutes (1945) 27 The Men imployed in Sorting the Beaver have found..342 Stage Pappoes.
1783 G. Cartwright in C. W. Townsend Captain Cartwright & his Labrador Jrnl. (1911) 302 The first year, they [sc. young beavers] are called pappooses.
1861 L. De Boileau Recoll. Labrador Life 82 The beaver is a social kind of animal, living in..families, generally consisting of five—father, mother, and three ‘papouses’ (so the young beavers are called).
1887 J. P. Howley MS Reminiscences 39 Went to look for the beaver. They were all young. I succeeded in killing two papooses.
3. = papoose carrier n. at Compounds 1.
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1992 M. Hedderwick Highland Journey ii. 85 There was a six month old baby en papoose on board.
1995 H. Dunmore Spell of Winter (1996) viii. 96 The wife was chewing sealskin to soften it so she could stitch it into shoes. The baby lay in a papoose, wound tight as baby Jesus in his swaddling clothes at Christmas.
2000 N.Y. Times 31 Dec. ix. 6/1 Joanna wore a black dress accessorized with a borrowed leather and fleece-lined Bill Amberg papoose tethered across her back. Suspended inside was..a wrinkled pink-faced infant.
Compounds
C1. General attributive. Designating any of various articles used by North American Indians, or based on North American Indian design, in which a baby or young child is carried or placed; esp. in:
papoose carrier n. a kind of pouch (usually set within a frame), for carrying a baby and designed to be worn on a person's back.
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1843 C. F. Hoffman Wild Scenes in Forest & Prairie I. 170 I must make a papoose-cradle for him to-morrow, and swing him somewhere outside of the shantee, where his squalling can't keep us awake.
1889 Amer. Anthropologist 2 27 No less does the consideration of the original freightman, or pappoose-carrier, involve the person, the load, the trail, and the primitive signal.
1960 J. L. Beattie Split in Sky xxi. 173 A papoose board with leather trappings, a turtle rattle,..and two belts of wampum.
1973 M. Herbert Snow People ii. 13 Although..Wally had Kari in a papoose carrier on his back..we know that Eskimo men never carried their children this way.
1986 R. Sproat Stunning the Punters 137 As it happens, that was about the last real pram I ever seen. All them collapsibles and these back-to-front papoose things nowadays, isn't it?
C2.
papoose root n. a North American plant, Caulophyllum thalictroides (family Berberidaceae), bearing panicles of small yellowish flowers and blue berries; also called blue cohosh; (also) the thick, twisted root of this plant, used in herbal medicine as a diuretic, emmenagogue, etc.
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the world > plants > particular plants > cultivated or valued plants > particular medicinal plants or parts > non-British medicinal plants > [noun] > other non-British medicinal plants or plant parts
scammony1567
teamster's tea1728
buchu1731
goatweed1756
Iceland moss1785
argel1803
opopanax-wort1811
papoose root1811
ginseng1818
mad-dog weed1818
chirayta1829
Corsican moss1849
goatweed1864
devil's claw1876
sneezeweed1877
lingzhi1904
mountain pink1936
1811 D. Hosack Hortus Elginensis (ed. 2) 32/2 (table) Leontice..meadow rue leaved..Poppoose root.
1843 J. Torrey Flora State N.Y. I. 33 Blue Cohosh. Pappoose-root... The root of this plant is in some repute as a diuretic and bitter.
1943 R. Peattie Great Smokies & Blue Ridge 190 The old wives of the mountains today are not averse to..giving their teething children a little papooseroot.
1997 Tulsa (Oklahoma) World (Nexis) 17 Oct. c6 Among those early plant-derived medicines was ‘blue cohosh’, also known as ‘papoose root’, that was used to promote menstruation and hasten the childbirth process.
This entry has been updated (OED Third Edition, March 2005; most recently modified version published online March 2022).
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