Meanings
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1
noun
a traditional Indigenous North American soft leather shoe, made in varied regional styles from hide stitched around the foot
The museum displayed a beaded moccasin made by an Anishinaabe artist.
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2
noun
a modern low, flexible shoe whose upper is constructed in a style resembling a traditional moccasin
He wore a brown leather moccasin with a hand-stitched toe seam.
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3
noun
in names such as water moccasin, any of several North American pit vipers, especially the cottonmouth
The guide warned us that a water moccasin might be resting near the marsh edge.
Thesaurus
Etymology
Borrowed in the early seventeenth century from Powhatan makasin and related Algonquian words for a shoe; cognates occur across several Algonquian languages. English later extended the name to modern footwear of similar construction and to several snakes in regional compounds.