ottawa

noun, plural Ot·ta·was, (especially collectively) Ot·ta·wa for 5.

1. a city in and the capital of Canada, in SE Ontario.
2. a river in SE Canada, flowing SE along the boundary between Ontario and Quebec into the St. Lawrence at Montreal. 685 miles (1105 km) long.
3. a city in NE Illinois, SW of Chicago.
4. a town in E Kansas.
5. a member of a tribe of Algonquian Indians of Canada, forced into the Lake Superior and Lake Michigan regions by the Iroquois confederacy.
6. the Ojibwa language as used by the Ottawa Indians.

noun

1. a nation in N North America: a member of the Commonwealth of Nations. 3,690,410 sq. mi. (9,558,160 sq. km). Capital: Ottawa.

noun

1. the capital of Canada, in E Ontario on the Ottawa River: name changed from Bytown to Ottawa in 1854. Pop: 774 072 (2001)
2. a river in central Canada, rising in W Quebec and flowing west, then southeast to join the St Lawrence River as its chief tributary at Montreal; forms the border between Quebec and Ontario for most of its length. Length: 1120 km (696 miles)

noun

1. a country in North America: the second largest country in the world; first permanent settlements by Europeans were made by the French from 1605; ceded to Britain in 1763 after a series of colonial wars; established as the Dominion of Canada in 1867; a member of the Commonwealth. It consists generally of sparsely inhabited tundra regions, rich in natural resources, in the north, the Rocky Mountains in the west, the Canadian Shield in the east, and vast central prairies; the bulk of the population is concentrated along the US border and the Great Lakes in the south. Languages: English and French. Religion: Christian majority. Currency: Canadian dollar. Capital: Ottawa. Pop: 34 568 211 (2013 est). Area: 9 976 185 sq km (3 851 809 sq miles)

Canadian capital, founded 1827 as Bytown, named for English officer John By, who oversaw construction of the canal there; renamed 1854, when it became capital, for the Ottawa River, which took its name from the Algonquian people who lived in Michigan and Ontario. Their name is said to be from adawe “to trade.” 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 (e.g. Mohawk kana:ta “town”). Canada goose is attested from 1772. Capital of Canada, located in southeastern Ontario across the Ottawa River from Quebec. Nation in northern North America, bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the east, the Arctic Ocean to the north, the Pacific Ocean and Alaska to the west, and the United States to the south. Its capital is Ottawa, and its largest city is Toronto. In area, Canada is the second largest nation in the world, behind Russia.