husky

The word 'husky' originates from a shortening of 'Ehuskemay' or 'Huskemaw', obsolete terms for the Inuit people or their language, which themselves were derived from a Montagnais (Algonquian) word meaning 'eaters of raw flesh'. By the mid-19th century, 'husky' was applied to the dogs bred and used by these Arctic peoples. The adjective senses developed later via metaphorical extension: the 'hoarse voice' sense (late 19th c.) evokes the rough, guttural sound of a dog's bark or a strained human voice, while the 'big and strong' sense (early 20th c.) directly describes the physical build characteristic of the sled dog breed.

The word 'husky' is a simplex word. It is a loanword and a derivative whose internal morphemes are not productively segmentable in modern English. The first element is historically related to 'Eskimo', but the modern form 'husky' functions as a single unit.