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Origin and history of Navajo

Navajo

Athabaskan people and language, 1780, from Spanish Apaches de Nabaju (1629), from Tewa (Tanoan) Navahu, said to mean literally "large field" or "large planted field," containing nava "field" and hu "valley." Spanish Navajo was used 17c. in reference to the area now in northwestern New Mexico.

also from 1780

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Trends of Navajo

adapted from books.google.com/ngrams/ with a 7-year moving average; ngrams are probably unreliable.

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Anasazi
Name applied by their Navajo neighbors to modern Pueblo peoples of the U.S. southwest, and to various landscape features...associated with them, from Navajo anaasazi "ancestors of the enemies."...
Athabaskan
The languages are spoken across a wide area of Alaska and sub-arctic Canada and include Apachean (including Navajo) in the...
Apache
Hodge, "American Indians," 1907), but this seems to have been the Zuni name for the Navajo....
weird
c. 1400, "having power to control fate," from wierd (n.), from Old English wyrd "fate, chance, fortune; destiny; the Fates," literally "that which comes," from Proto-Germanic *wurthiz (source also of Old Saxon wurd, Old High German wurt "fate," Old Norse urðr "fate, one of the th
ghost
Old English gast "breath; good or bad spirit, angel, demon; person, man, human being," in Biblical use "soul, spirit, life," from Proto-West Germanic *gaistaz (source also of Old Saxon gest, Old Frisian jest, Middle Dutch gheest, Dutch geest, German Geist "spirit, ghost"). This i
organization
early 15c., organisacioun, "structure of the body or its parts;" mid-15c., "act or process of organizing, the arranging of parts in an organic whole" from Medieval Latin organizationem (nominative organizatio), noun of action from past-participle stem of organizare, from Latin or
premise
late 14c., in logic, "a previous proposition from which another follows, a judgment causing another judgment," from Old French premisse (14c.), from Medieval Latin praemissa (propositio or sententia) "(the proposition) set before," noun use of fem. past participle of Latin praemi
Caucasian
1807, of or pertaining to the Caucasus Mountains (q.v.), with -ian. Applied to the "white" race 1795 (in Latin) by German anthropologist Johann Friedrich Blumenbach (1752-1840), who in his pioneering treatise on anthropology distinguished mankind into five races: Mongolian, Ethio
premium
c. 1600, "reward given for a specific act or a particular line of conduct," from Latin praemium "reward, profit derived from booty," from prae "before" (see pre-) + emere "to buy," originally "to take" (from PIE root *em- "to take, distribute"). The sense of "amount to be paid by
Gothic
"of the Goths," the ancient Germanic people, "pertaining to the Goths or their language," 1610s, from Late Latin Gothicus, from Gothi, Greek Gothoi (see Goth). Old English had Gotisc. As a noun, "the language of the Goths," from 1757. Gothic was used by 17c. scholars to mean "Ger

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