Oriskany

English

Etymology

Said to be from Iroquoian (“place of nettles”).^[1]

According to folk etymology, the naming of the town was due to a typographical error on the address label of an envelope. The 1777 Battle of Oriskany during the American Revolution was fought west of the location of the modern village, near an Oneida village called Oriska. It has been suggested that the modern village, founded in 1811, was also originally named Oriska, but became Oriskany after an envelope marked “Oriska NY” was misinterpreted. However, this is highly unlikely due to the existence of 18th-century documents using the name Oriskany which predate the founding of the local post office by decades.

Pronunciation

(Received Pronunciation, General American) IPA^(key): /əˈɹɪskəni/
Hyphenation: Oris‧ka‧ny

Proper noun

Oriskany

A village in Oneida County, New York, United States
An unincorporated community in Botetourt County, Virginia, United States

Derived terms

Oriskany Falls

References

^ Henry Gannett (1902) “The Names and Their Origin”, in The Origin of Certain Place Names in the United States (Bulletin of the United States Geographical Survey; no. 197; Series F (Geography); 32), Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, →OCLC, page 198: “An Indian word, meaning ‘place of nettles.’”