Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun A food prepared by Native Americans from lean dried strips of meat pounded into paste, mixed with fat and berries, and pressed into small cakes.
  • noun A food made chiefly from beef, dried fruit, and suet, used as emergency rations.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun Originally, a preparation made by the North American Indians, consisting of the lean parts of venison, dried by the sun or wind, and then pounded into a paste, with melted fat, and tightly pressed into cakes, a few service-berries being sometimes added to improve the flavor.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun Among the North American Indians, meat cut in thin slices, divested of fat, and dried in the sun.
  • noun Meat, without the fat, cut in thin slices, dried in the sun, pounded, then mixed with melted fat and sometimes dried fruit, and compressed into cakes or in bags. It contains much nutriment in small compass, and is of great use in long voyages of exploration.
  • noun A treatise of much thought in little compass.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun A food made from meat which has been dried and beaten into a paste, mixed with berries and rendered fat, and shaped into little patties.
  • noun An emergency ration of meat and fruit.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun lean dried meat pounded fine and mixed with melted fat; used especially by North American Indians

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Cree pimihkaan.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Cree ᐱᒦᐦᑳᐣ (pimîhkân, "pemmican"), from ᐱᒥᕀ (pimiy, "grease, oil, lard").

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