Names for United States citizens

Different languages use different terms for citizens of the United States, who are known in English as Americans. All forms of English refer to these people as "Americans", derived from "The United States of America",. From the Oxford English Dictionary. Retrieved November 10, 2008. but there is some linguistic ambiguity over this due to the other senses of the word American, which can also refer to people from the Americas or America in general. Other languages, including French, Japanese, Chinese, and Russian, use cognates of "American" to refer to people from the United States, but others, particularly Spanish, primarily use terms derived from "United States". There are various other local and colloquial names for Americans.

Development of the term "American"

The adjective "American" originally referred to the landmass known as the Americas or America. "Americans" originally referred to the indigenous peoples of the Americas, and later to European settlers and their descendants. English use of the term "American" for people of European descent dates to the 17th century; the earliest recorded appearance is in Thomas Gage's The English-American: A New Survey of the West Indies in 1648. "American" especially applied to...
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