Meaning

noun shrubby tree closely related to the Allegheny chinkapin but with larger leaves; southern midwestern United States

noun shrubby chestnut tree of southeastern United States having small edible nuts

noun small nut of either of two small chestnut trees of the southern United States; resembles a hazelnut

originLike its cognate / alternative form chinkapin, chinquapin is an alteration of chechinquamin / chincomen (the form found in early records), from an Algonquian language (sometimes said specifically to be from Powhatan). The final element is *mini (“berry, fruit”). Hewitt suggested that the first element was a word meaning "large, great" cognate to xinkw- (“big, large, great”).

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 3.0