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wampum (n.)string of seashell beads used as money by Native Americans, 1630s, shortened from New England Algonquian wampumpeag (1620s), "string of white (shell beads);" said to be compounded from wab "white" + ompe "string" + plural suffix -ag.
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Roanoke
Related entries & more county in Virginia, the name (also used in other places in U.S.) is that of Sir Walter Raleigh's lost colony in what is now North Carolina; probably an Algonquian name, recorded by 1584. It might be the same word as rawranock "shells used for money, kind of wampum," which is attested in English by 1624.
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