the river bore various names after its discovery in 1500 and was finally called Amazon after a legendary race of female warriors believed to live on its bankslate Middle English : via Latin from Greek Amazōn, explained by the Greeks as 'breastless' (as if from a- 'without' + mazos 'breast'), referring to the fable that the Amazons cut off the right breast so as not to interfere with the use of a bow, but probably a folk etymology of an unknown foreign word