wampum

5 definitions found

wampum - Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48 :

  Seawan \Sea"wan\, Seawant \Sea"want\, n.
     The name used by the Algonquin Indians for the shell beads
     which passed among the Indians as money.
     [1913 Webster]
  
     Note: Seawan was of two kinds; wampum, white, and
           suckanhock, black or purple, -- the former having
           half the value of the latter. Many writers, however,
           use the terms seawan and wampum indiscriminately.
           --Bartlett.
           [1913 Webster]

  Wampum \Wam"pum\, n. [North American Indian wampum, wompam, from
     the Mass. w['o]mpi, Del. w[=a]pe, white.]
     Beads made of shells, used by the North American Indians as
     money, and also wrought into belts, etc., as an ornament.
     [1913 Webster]
  
           Round his waist his belt of wampum.      --Longfellow.
     [1913 Webster]
  
           Girded with his wampum braid.            --Whittier.
     [1913 Webster]
  
     Note: These beads were of two kinds, one white, and the other
           black or dark purple. The term wampum is properly
           applied only to the white; the dark purple ones are
           called suckanhock. See Seawan. "It [wampum] consisted
           of cylindrical pieces of the shells of testaceous
           fishes, a quarter of an inch long, and in diameter less
           than a pipestem, drilled . . . so as to be strung upon
           a thread. The beads of a white color, rated at half the
           value of the black or violet, passed each as the
           equivalent of a farthing in transactions between the
           natives and the planters." --Palfrey.
           [1913 Webster]

wampum - WordNet (r) 2.1 (2005) :

  wampum
      n 1: informal terms for money [syn: boodle, bread,
           cabbage, clams, dinero, dough, gelt, kale,
           lettuce, lolly, lucre, loot, moolah, pelf,
           scratch, shekels, simoleons, sugar, wampum]
      2: small cylindrical beads made from polished shells and
         fashioned into strings or belts; used by certain Native
         American peoples as jewelry or currency [syn: wampum,
         peag, wampumpeag]

wampum - U.S. Gazetteer (1990) :

  Wampum, PA (borough, FIPS 80880)
    Location: 40.88647 N, 80.33880 W
    Population (1990): 666 (308 housing units)
    Area: 2.4 sq km (land), 0.1 sq km (water)
    Zip code(s): 16157

wampum - Moby Thesaurus II by Grady Ward, 1.0 :

  73 Moby Thesaurus words for "wampum":
     anklet, armlet, bangle, beads, bijou, blunt, boodle, bracelet,
     brass, bread, breastpin, brooch, bucks, cabbage, cash, chain,
     chaplet, charm, chatelaine, chips, circle, coin, coronet, cowrie,
     crown, currency, diadem, dinero, dough, earring, fob, gelt, gem,
     gilt, grease, green, green stuff, greenbacks, jack, jewel, kale,
     legal tender, locket, lucre, mazuma, moolah, mopus, necklace,
     nose ring, oil of palms, ointment, oof, ooftish, pin,
     precious stone, rhinestone, rhino, ring, roanoke, rocks, sewan,
     shekels, simoleons, spondulics, stickpin, stone, sugar,
     the needful, tiara, tin, torque, wristband, wristlet