Eskimo is an old English name for the Inuit and some related peoples who live in the very cold far north of North America and Greenland. Though actually, many of those people, and many writers now, find the word wrong or hurtful, and they prefer Inuit, or a more exact name such as Yupik or Inupiat. There is a messy part: Inuit does not cover every group that English once lumped together as “Eskimo,” and some people in Alaska have gone on using Eskimo as a broad label. For a student, the kind choice is not to use Eskimo for people. Use the name the group uses, or say Inuit when that is right. You will still see the word in old books, film titles, and the language-family name Eskimo-Aleut. Teachers used to repeat a story that it meant “eater of raw meat.” People who study languages mostly reject that. The better-supported story is that it came through French from a Montagnais (Innu) word for a person who nets snowshoes. Do not repeat the raw-meat story as fact.