Petukqui-ompskut, corrupted to Pettiquamscut, ‘at the round rock.’  Such a rock, on the east side of Narrow River, north-east from Tower Hill Church in South Kingston, R.I., was one of the bound marks of, and gave a name to, the “Pettiquamscut purchase” in the Narragansett country.

Wanashqui-ompskut (wanashquompsqut, Ezekiel xxvi. 14), ’at the top of the rock,’ or at ‘the point of rock.’ Wonnesquam, Annis Squam, and Squam, near Cape Ann, are perhaps corrupt forms of the name of some ‘rock summit’ or ‘point of rock’ thereabouts. Winnesquamsaukit (for wanashqui-ompsk-ohk-it?) near Exeter Falls, N.H., has been transformed to Swampscoate and Squamscot.  The name of Swamscot or Swampscot, formerly part of Lynn, Mass., has a different meaning.  It is from m’squi-ompsk, ‘Red Rock’ (the modern name), near the north end of Long Beach, which was perhaps “The clifte” mentioned as one of the bounds of Mr. Humfrey’s Swampscot farm, laid out in 1638.[32] M’squompskut means ‘at the red rock.’  The sound of the initial m was easily lost to English ears.[33]

[Footnote 32:  Mass.  Records, i. 147, 226.]

[Footnote 33:  Squantam, the supposed name of an Algonkin deity, is only a corrupt form of the verb m’squantam, = musqui-antam, ’he is angry,’ literally, ‘he is red (bloody-) minded.’]

Penobscot, a corruption of the Abnaki pa[n]na[oo]a[n]bskek, was originally the name of a locality on the river so called by the English.  Mr. Moses Greenleaf, in a letter to Dr. Morse in 1823, wrote ‘Pe noom’ ske ook’ as the Indian name of Old Town Falls, “whence the English name of the River, which would have been better, Penobscook.”  He gave, as the meaning of this name, “Rocky Falls.”  The St. Francis Indians told Thoreau, that it means “Rocky River."[34] ‘At the fall of the rock’ or ‘at the descending rock’ is a more nearly exact translation.  The first syllable, pen- (Abn. pa[n]na) represents a root meaning ’to fall from a height,’—­as in pa[n]n-tek[oo], ‘fall of a river’ or ‘rapids;’ pena[n]-ki, ’fall of land,’ the descent or downward slope of a mountain, &c.

[Footnote 34:  Maine Woods, pp. 145, 324.]

Keht-ompskqut, or ‘Ketumpscut’ as it was formerly written,[35]—­’at the greatest rock,’—­is corrupted to Catumb, the name of a reef off the west end of Fisher’s Island.

[Footnote 35:  Pres.  Stiles’s Itinerary, 1761.]

Tomheganomset[36]—­corrupted finally to ‘Higganum,’ the name of a brook and parish in the north-east part of Haddam,—­appears to have been, originally, the designation of a locality from which the Indians procured stone suitable for making axes,—­tomhegun-ompsk-ut, ’at the tomahawk rock.’  In ‘Higganompos,’ as the name was sometimes written, without the locative affix, we have less difficulty in recognizing the substantival _-ompsk_.