Chinook U.S.
(tʃɪˈnuːk)
[Native name of an Indian people on the Columbia river, N. America, with whom early intercourse was established by the Hudson Bay colony at Vancouver.]
a. A jargon which originated in the intercourse of the Hudson Bay Company's servants with the Indians of Oregon and Columbia, and is used by the latter as a means of intercourse between different Indian groups and with white people. Chinook wind: a warm, dry, and often turbulent wind that blows for hours or days at a time down the eastern slopes of the Rocky Mountains and over the adjacent plains (see also quot. 1967); also ellipt.
| 1840 H. Hale Ethnog. in U.S. Explor. Exp. 636 Tshinuk jargon or Trade Language. 18.. Joaquin Miller Mem. & Rime (1884) 134 All Indian [N. Am.] dialects, except the ‘Chinook’, a conglomerate published by the Hudson Bay Company for their own purposes. 1860 A. J. Thibodo Diary 1 Apr. in Pacific Northwest Q. (1940) XXXI. 347 Pleasant warm weather, high winds from S.W., they call it the Chinook wind. 1876 Idaho Daily Avalanche (Silver City) 18 Mar. 2/2 In winter however it is somewhat blustery, the wild, yet balmy chinook, sweeping with intense force from the open south and west country. 1884 Boston Jrnl. 6 Mar., Our cold weather..is tempered by the ‘Chinook’ wind from the Pacific coast. 1887 West Shore, Snow..is frequently removed in short order by the chinook, as the warm ocean wind is called. 1887 Governor's Rept. in Puget Sound Gaz. July 1888 The Chinook is the natural enemy of the odious east wind. 1889 Ill. Lond. N. 2 Mar. 266 (title) The Chinook. 1932 Fuller & Conard tr. Braun-Blanquet's Plant Sociol. v. 97 The chinook wind in Alberta, Canada, may raise the temperature in a very short time from -10° to more than 20° C. 1936 D. McCowan Anim. Canad. Rockies x. 87 The potency of the Chinook winds. Ibid., Under a Chinook the snow does not melt, it evaporates. 1967 R. W. Fairbridge Encycl. Atmos. Sci. 1151/2 Chinook winds may occur in summer but are less noticeable then. The term chinook has mistakenly been used for any warm and moist oceanic wind on the windward side of the [Rocky] mountains. |
b. In full Chinook salmon = quinnat.
| 1851 San Francisco Picayune 15 Oct. 2/5 A supply of Chenook salmon. 1881 Amer. Naturalist XV. 177 Quinnat—..Chinnook salmon, Columbia River salmon, Sacramento Salmon. 1884 Goode Nat. Hist. Aquatic Anim. 479 On the Columbia River the name ‘Chinnook Salmon’ is in universal use. 1889 Oregonian (Portland) 4 Nov. 5/1 He..landed after a most exciting fight, a chinook or chisel-mouth of large size. 1911 F. J. Haskin Amer. Govt. xii. 151 The bureau of fisheries..has tried to establish the chinook salmon in Atlantic coast waters. 1936 J. T. Jenkins Fishes Brit. Is. (ed. 2) 24 In the United States... In 1872 the Bureau of Fisheries distributed 30,000 eggs of the Chinook salmon. 1940 Geogr. Jrnl. XCVI. 241 Forty-two million salmon of one variety (chinook) alone. 1955 Sci. Amer. Aug. 72/3 The other five salmon species, all on the Pacific Coast, are the Chinook (also called the king salmon), the sockeye, the silver, the humpback, and the chum. |