Lackawanna

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A river flowing through northeastern Pennsylvania ; a city in northeastern New Jersey ; a county in northern Pennsylvania ; a Native American people historically living in northeastern Pennsylvania
2. A waterway running across northeastern Pennsylvania ; a municipality in northeastern New Jersey ; a northern Pennsylvania county ; an indigenous group once settled in northeastern Pennsylvania
3. A stream in northeastern Pennsylvania ; an urban place in northeastern New Jersey ; a county in the north of Pennsylvania ; a tribe that originally inhabited northeastern Pennsylvania

Etymology: The name traces back to the Lenape language, spoken by Indigenous peoples of the Delaware Valley in what is now the northeastern United States. Its root phrase, "Lechauwa-hannek," meant "the river that forks," a description of the waterway in northeastern Pennsylvania where two branches meet. English speakers borrowed the name for the river and, later, for the places built along it. Over time the name spread well beyond that river. It now belongs to a county in northeastern Pennsylvania and to a city of the same name, both of which take their identity from the original geography. The meaning stayed literal: a name describing a physical feature of the land, preserved through generations of settlement and mapmaking.