Squaw is an English language loan-word, used as a noun or adjective, whose present meaning is an indigenous woman of North America. It is derived from the eastern Algonquian morpheme meaning "woman" that appears in numerous Algonquian dialects variously spelled squa, skwa, esqua, sqeh, skwe, que, kwa, ikwe, etc. The term has been considered offensive since the late 20th century if not earlier.
