Potowmack

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A large river flowing through the mid-Atlantic region of the eastern United States, forming part of the border between Maryland and Virginia before reaching the Chesapeake Bay
2. An old spelling of the Potomac, the major river that runs past Washington, D.C. and empties into the Chesapeake Bay in the eastern United States
3. The name of an eastern American river whose course passes through West Virginia, Virginia, and Maryland on its way to the Chesapeake Bay

Etymology: Potowmack is an older spelling of Potomac, the river that runs along the border of Maryland and Virginia and past Washington, D.C. Its name comes from the Algonquian languages of the people who lived along its banks before European colonization. Scholars are not certain what it meant. One proposal links it to the Patawomeck, an Algonquian-speaking people on the river's lower shore, and suggests the river took its name from them or from a place they used. Other suggested meanings, such as "where goods are brought in," are guesses that cannot be confirmed from the surviving records. English speakers in the colonial period spelled the name in many ways, and "Potowmack" was one of the most common. The spelling was not fixed until later, and the modern "Potomac" became standard only gradually. Because the name was recorded by settlers writing it down by ear, the spellings tell us more about English spelling habits than about the original Algonquian pronunciation.