Canuck n.

1560s (implied in Canadian), said to be a Latinized form of a word for "village" in an Iroquoian language of the St. Lawrence valley that had gone extinct by 1600. Most still-spoken Iroquoian languages have a similar word (such as Mohawk kana:ta "town").

In early 18c. Canada meant French Canada, Quebec. The British colonies (including the American colonies) were British America. After 1791 the remainder of British America was Upper Canada (the English part), Lower Canada (the French part), New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, and, separately, Newfoundland. An act of Parliament in 1840 merged Upper and Lower Canada, and in 1867 the Dominion of Canada was created from the British colonies of Canada, Nova Scotia, and New Brunswick. Canada goose is attested from 1772.

name for a group of related native people in the Columbia River region of Washington and Oregon, from Salishan /činuk/, name of a village site [Bright]. The name was extended to a type of salmon (1851) and a warm spring wind in that region (1860). Chinook jargon was a mishmash of native (Chinook and Nootka), French, and English words; it once was the lingua franca in the Pacific Northwest, and this sense is the earliest attested use of the word (1840).