Word of the Day
enchilada
En·chi·LA·da
Mexican Spanish (from Nahuatl)
“A corn tortilla dipped in chili sauce and wrapped around a filling: the name is simply Spanish for 'chili-ed,' and the word that built it — chili — comes from Nahuatl, the language of the Aztecs, making enchilada a bilingual construction built on a tongue still spoken by a million people.”
Enchilada is a Mexican Spanish word, the feminine past participle of enchilar, meaning 'to season with chili' or 'to apply chili to.' The verb enchilar is constructed from the prefix en- (meaning 'in' or 'with,' from Latin in-) and chile, the Spanish borrowing of the Nahuatl word chīlli, the Aztec name for the chili pepper plant and its fruit. So the word enchilada means literally 'chili-ed' — a thing that has been treated with chili. The suffix -ada (the feminine past participle ending) indicates that something has been done to the object, the way 'marinated' means treated with marinade. An enchilada is a corn tortilla that has been dipped in or coated with chili sauce.
5 stops · from Central Mexico (Aztec/Mexica civilization) to American English (mainstream culture)