Meaning

noun a Samoyedic-speaking person in northwestern Siberia

noun the Uralic languages spoken by the Samoyed in northwestern Siberia

noun Siberian breed of white or cream-colored dog of the spitz family

originFrom Russian самое́д (samojéd), probably from Sami *saam-edne (“land of the people”); compare Finnish Suomi (“Finn”). In the course of borrowing, the word was folk-etymologically reinterpreted as сам (sam, “self, own”) + есть, ед- (jestʹ, jed-, “eat”), "self-eater."

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 3.0