Definitions

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun Canada, US A non-Inuit person in Canada or Greenland, especially a European or someone of European descent.

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From a combination of Eastern Canadian Inuktitut qallunaaq ("foreigner") and Greenlandic Kablunâk ("foreigner") (now kallunaaq).

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Examples

  • He heard words that sounded like kabloona and qavac and miagortok, but had no clue whatsoever as to what they might mean.

    The Terror Simmons, Dan 2007

  • What the old man had said was that the three-stick kabloona house with an umiak's hull was a certain number of hours 'walk west of tikerqat, which means “Two Fingers,” which the Real People called two narrow points along this stretch of the Utjulik coastline, and then somewhere close to the north end of a large island there.

    The Terror Simmons, Dan 2007

  • She was curious about the fates of the final kabloona whom everyone knew had headed south across the ice three summers ago.

    The Terror Simmons, Dan 2007

  • Asiajuk brought his best wife, Seagull — young Nauja of the amooq big tits — who also carried her scars from the band's lethal encounter with the kabloona three years earlier.

    The Terror Simmons, Dan 2007

  • The sixam ieua knew through their forward-thoughts that when the Tuunbaq's domain was finally invaded by the pale people — the kabloona — it would be the beginning of the End of Times.

    The Terror Simmons, Dan 2007

  • Through the God-Walking People hunters who understood his signs, Crozier had offered bribes to Puhtoorak if the old man would agree to bring his family with him and come along to show them the way to the kabloona boat with the three sticks rising from its roof, but the old Qikiqtarqjuaq wanted nothing more to do with the haunted kabloona three-stick house.

    The Terror Simmons, Dan 2007

  • The sixam ieua knew through their forward-thoughts that when the Tuunbaq's domain was finally invaded by the pale people--the kabloona--it would be the beginning of the End of Times.

    The Broken Lands and The Terror: Two Novels about the Franklin Expedition 2007

  • The sixam ieua knew through their forward-thoughts that when the Tuunbaq's domain was finally invaded by the pale people--the kabloona--it would be the beginning of the End of Times.

    The Little Professor: 2007

  • When the Tuunbaq dies because of the kabloona sickness, the spirit-governors-of-the-sky knew, its cold, white domain will begin to heat and melt and thaw.

    The Terror Simmons, Dan 2007

  • After all the meeting ceremonies and meals were over, he managed through his interpreted signs to move the conversation to the kabloona gifts.

    The Terror Simmons, Dan 2007

Comments

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  • n., A non-Inuit person; (spec.) a person of European descent. Collectively, kabloonat. Cf. later Qallunaaq/Qallunaat.

    September 1, 2008

  • Isn't it disparaging or pejorative? I'm not sure if it is out and out racist like spic (does ANYONE say that anymore, even racists?) or merely dismissive, like foreigner itself in many contexts.

    On another note, transliterations bedevil all word studies of this sort!

    December 22, 2008