Athapaskan n 1: a member of any of the North American Indian groups speaking an Athapaskan language and living in the subarctic regions of western Canada and central Alaska [syn: {Athapascan}, {Athabaskan}, {Athabascan}] 2: a group of Amerindian languages (the name coined by an American anthropologist, Edward Sapir) [syn: {Athapascan}, {Athabaskan}, {Athabascan}, {Athapaskan language}]