Ellensburgh

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A city in the central part of Washington State in the northwestern United States, known as the home of a major public university
2. A municipality located in central Washington State, in the Pacific Northwest region of the United States
3. A small city in the interior of Washington State in the American Pacific Northwest, named after a historic settlement

Etymology: Ellensburg, a town in central Washington State, takes its name from a woman, Ellen Shoudy, who was the wife of an early settler in the Kittitas Valley. Like many American place names honoring a settler's family, it is a plain personal name with "-burg," a German-derived suffix meaning "town" or "fortified place," added to it. The spelling with a final "h," which is the form this word takes, was the older version of the name. That final "h" was later dropped, and the town now uses the spelling without it. The older form survives in some historical records and in older references to the town and the region, so readers encountering it in an old document are reading the same place under its earlier spelling.