"North American Indian shoe" (made of deerskin or soft leather), 1610s, from an Algonquian language of Virginia, probably Powhatan makasin "shoe," from Central Atlantic Coast Algonquian *mockasin, similar to Southern New England Algonquian *makkusin, Munsee Delaware mahkusin, Ojibwa makizin. The venomous snake of southern U.S. (1784) is perhaps a different word, but Bright regards them as identical.
