Unicoi

English

Etymology

From Cherokee ᎤᏁᎬ (unegv, “white”) + a placename suffix. Doublet of Unakas.[1]

Pronunciation

Proper noun

Unicoi

  1. A town in Unicoi County, Tennessee.
  2. A mountain range in the southern Appalachians, the Unicois.

References
  1. Owen Link McConnell (2013 December 10) Unicoi Unity: A Natural History of the Unicoi and Snowbird Mountains and Their Plants, Fungi, and Animals, AuthorHouse, →ISBN:
    On early maps the preset Unicoi Mountains were labelled either "White Mountains" [...] or "Unaka Mountains" [...] James Mooney (1900), [...] states that the word, "Unicoi," is "Probably a corruption of une'gă, white, whence comes also Unaka." [...] T. J. Holland, the tribe historian of the Eastern Band of the Cherokees, told me that the Cherokee language adds "hi," pronounced "hee," at the end of a word to designate a place; hence, "une gă '-hi," meaning "white place," was probably the origin of the name, "Unicoi." Presumably [...] in reference to their color in winter [...] Since “Unaka” and “Unicoi” had been in common use as alternative names for the northern and southern segments of the Unaka ridge for many years, Horace Kephart (the writer who chronicled the language and ways of people living in the Great Smoky Mountains) proposed in the late 1920s that "Unaka" be retained as an official name for the northern segment and that "Unicoi" be used for the southern one.
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