Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- noun A preparation made from the dried leaves and bark of various plants, often including bearberry and sometimes mixed with tobacco, smoked especially by certain Native American peoples.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- noun A mixture of bark, dried leaves, and often berries and/or tobacco, which is smoked.
- noun Any of the plants whose berries, leaves or bark used in this mixture.
Etymologies
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
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Examples
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The red willow bark is known as kinnikinnick, and adds a pleasant fragrance to smoking tobacco in the aboriginal estimation.
Hiawatha; a poem, by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. Illustrated by John Rea Neill. 1856
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But I like to think that someday, maybe a century or more from now, a hunter might be sitting against that same tree in the fall and, should he or she dislodge that oddly tilted stone — which would be lichen-covered by then and gripped with a webbing of kinnikinnick — might notice the brass and understand that once upon a time there was another hunter like him or her.
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But I like to think that someday, maybe a century or more from now, a hunter might be sitting against that same tree in the fall and, should he or she dislodge that oddly tilted stone — which would be lichen-covered by then and gripped with a webbing of kinnikinnick — might notice the brass and understand that once upon a time there was another hunter like him or her.
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Now Broken Thumb prepared a calumet, keeping it on his knees while he mixed tobacco and kinnikinnick in prescribed amounts.
Centennial Michener, James 1974
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Making him two elk-horn picks, and filling his ikta with dried salmon and kinnikinnick, he climbed in two nights and a day to the summit.
The Mountain that was 'God' Being a Little Book About the Great Peak Which the Indians Named 'Tacoma' but Which is Officially Called 'Rainier' John H. Williams
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Adam had risen early and decked every available spot with kinnikinnick until the room fairly glistened.
The Master-Knot of Human Fate Ellis Meredith
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She would willingly have rested had not her eyes spied the red berries of some kinnikinnick growing on either side of the path.
Virginia of Elk Creek Valley Mary Ellen Chase 1930
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The search for kinnikinnick was not, however, her real reason for wishing to see Carver.
Virginia of Elk Creek Valley Mary Ellen Chase 1930
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Last evening, just as Mr. Benjamin Jarvis 'guests were dispersing, she had made a hasty engagement with Carver to meet her the following afternoon and go for kinnikinnick up Cinnamon Creek.
Virginia of Elk Creek Valley Mary Ellen Chase 1930
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Her box was filled with kinnikinnick and she would go back.
Virginia of Elk Creek Valley Mary Ellen Chase 1930
reesetee commented on the word kinnikinnick
A mixture of bark, dried leaves, and sometimes tobacco, formerly smoked by the Native Americans and pioneers in the Ohio valley; or the plants used in this mixture, especially bearberry.
Gotta love this word. :-)
February 28, 2007
trivet commented on the word kinnikinnick
Oh my goodness, yes! Now I only have to find a way to drop it into conversations...
February 28, 2007
reesetee commented on the word kinnikinnick
Well, you could plant some bearberry and then, while leading a late summer afternoon tour of your garden, announce that you have here a beautiful kinnikkinnick hedge....
February 28, 2007
tendrel commented on the word kinnikinnick
I've tried it once, made my heart race.
March 6, 2007
reesetee commented on the word kinnikinnick
Not surprising, tendrel! But I'll bet it was an interesting experience....
March 6, 2007
polymorph commented on the word kinnikinnick
This plant is particularly valued for use in treating urinary tract inflammation.
I went looking for etymology and found this:
kiku. Tobacco. Compare kinnickkinnick (Ojibwe).
kinnikkinnik. Smoking mixture (from Algonquian language).
- Source (MS-WORD .doc)
April 8, 2007
chained_bear commented on the word kinnikinnick
"There is already a distinct chill in the air though it is only late July. Last night the temperature dropped below freezing, and this morning we woke to discover an inch of snow on the ground, clinging to the fireweed and the kinnikinnick."
—James Campbell, The Final Frontiersman (New York and London: Atria Books, 2004), 193
September 17, 2008
slumry commented on the word kinnikinnick
Arctostaphylos uva-ursi
June 17, 2015
vendingmachine commented on the word kinnikinnick
Just checking to see if mollusque added this word to his Monovocalics list.
July 21, 2015