kayak

English borrowed this word from Inuktitut ᖃᔭᖅ (qayaq), meaning "hunter's boat," via Inuvialuktun. That word traces back to Proto-Eskimo *qayaʁ.

The word entered English as a direct borrowing, keeping close to its original meaning of a hunter's boat rather than shifting sense over time.

Greenlandic qajaq and Yup'ik qayaq are cognates, both descending from the same Proto-Eskimo root *qayaʁ, showing how widely this word for a boat spread across Arctic languages.