sachem

First attested in the 1620s. Borrowed from Narragansett sachem; compare Unami sakima (“chief”), Mi'kmaq saqamaw (“chief”). Ultimately the same Proto-Algonquian root *sa·kima·wa as sagamore.

• (UK) IPA^(key): /ˈseɪtʃəm/, /ˈsatʃəm/

sachem (plural sachems)

1. The chief of a Native American tribe; a sagamore.
   • 1851, Herman Melville, Moby Dick, chapter 16

     Planted with their broad ends on the deck, a circle of these slabs laced together, mutually sloped towards each other, and at the apex united in a tufted point, where the loose hairy fibres waved to and fro like the top-knot on some old Pottowottamie Sachem’s head.

• mechas, samech, schame, schema