plural Chinook or Chinooks
1
: a member of an Indigenous people of the north shore of the Columbia River at its mouth
2
: a Chinookan language of the Chinook and other nearby peoples
3
or less commonly chinook
a
: a warm moist southwest wind of the coast from Oregon northward
b
: a warm dry wind that descends the eastern slopes of the Rocky Mountains
4
5
: any of a rare breed of large, muscular dogs that were developed in New Hampshire in the early 1900s as sled and working dogs and have a yellow, reddish-yellow, or yellowish-brown coat and calm temperament
Among the dogs he [Arthur Treadwell Walden] used for breeding the Chinook were descendants of Admiral Peary's Greenland expedition huskies, along with mastiff-types.—
John Nolan
John NolanExamples of Chinook in a Sentence
Recent Examples on the Web
The spring salmon run brings over a million Chinook, sockeye, and coho, but there’s plenty of year-round catches like walleye.
—Zoe Baillargeon, Travel + Leisure, 31 May 2025
The first Chinook salmon was seen moving up past where the Iron Gate dam had stood within a few weeks of that dam coming down, after a century of anadromous fish unable to migrate past that point up to the headwaters.
—Erik Pedersen, Oc Register, 30 May 2025
The bid opening for a new North Mineral Springs Road Bridge in Porter has been delayed until July, and the challenges might include how construction crews will have to work around the presence of the Coho and Chinook Salmon in the Little Calumet River’s East Branch.
—Jim Woods, Chicago Tribune, 22 May 2025
More recent conflicts will be represented with Army UH-1 Huey, AH-1 Cobra, AH-64 Apache and CH-47 Chinook helicopters.
—Anne Flaherty, ABC News, 22 May 2025
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Zoe Baillargeon, Travel + Leisure, 31 May 2025
The first Chinook salmon was seen moving up past where the Iron Gate dam had stood within a few weeks of that dam coming down, after a century of anadromous fish unable to migrate past that point up to the headwaters.
—Erik Pedersen, Oc Register, 30 May 2025
The bid opening for a new North Mineral Springs Road Bridge in Porter has been delayed until July, and the challenges might include how construction crews will have to work around the presence of the Coho and Chinook Salmon in the Little Calumet River’s East Branch.
—Jim Woods, Chicago Tribune, 22 May 2025
More recent conflicts will be represented with Army UH-1 Huey, AH-1 Cobra, AH-64 Apache and CH-47 Chinook helicopters.
—Anne Flaherty, ABC News, 22 May 2025
See All Example Sentences for Chinook
Cite this Entry
“Chinook.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/Chinook. Accessed 6 Jun. 2025.
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