Pascataquack

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. An early colonial-era name for a settlement near the mouth of the Piscataqua River on the New Hampshire coast
2. The historical name given to a coastal trading post and village on the Piscataqua River in colonial New England
3. A seventeenth-century place name for a settlement in the region of the Piscataqua River in present-day New Hampshire

Etymology: Along the coast of what is now southern Maine and New Hampshire, English colonists recorded a river and a settlement under names they spelled in many ways, including "Pascataquack." The name comes from the Algonquian languages of the region, and it is the ancestor of the modern Piscataqua, the river that now forms part of the border between the two states. Because the name passed through English transcription without a standard spelling, early records show many variants. Its precise meaning is uncertain. Some proposed readings connect it to a fork or branching of the river, but surviving records do not confirm any single interpretation.