Chihuahua

How to spell chihuahua

9 letters · 3 syllables

121 of the 382 people asked to spell chihuahua in Spelling Garden got it wrong the first time.

The most common mistake is chiuaua. The letters people get wrong are highlighted.

chiuaua chihuahua

What people typed instead

• chiuaua22 people
• chiwawa15 people
• chihuaha9 people
• chihuaua7 people
• chiuahua7 people
• chihuhua6 people

How to pronounce chihuahua

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does chihuahua mean?

1. nounA very small breed of dog with large eyes and ears, originating in Mexico.

Chihuahua in a sentence

• The elderly neighbour carries her tiny chihuahua everywhere in a padded bag.

• A chihuahua weighs only a couple of kilograms, far less than most other dogs.

Where does chihuahua come from?

Language of origin: Spanish

The word comes straight from Spanish, where Chihuahua is the name of the large northern Mexican state, and the tiny dog was named after the region where it was first noticed by nineteenth-century travellers. The Spanish place name itself is generally traced to Nahuatl, the language of the Aztecs, though scholars disagree about the precise original words; popular readings gloss it as something like 'dry, sandy place' or 'place between two waters', and the true meaning is genuinely uncertain. English adopted the dog name in the late 1800s, keeping the Spanish spelling intact, which is exactly why it looks so alien to English eyes. The spelling trap is built into that faithful borrowing: the silent opening 'h', and the way the syllable 'hua' appears twice, so writers must remember 'chi-HUA-HUA' rather than trusting the sound. Knowing it is a Mexican place name, not an English coinage, is the best memory hook for getting every letter in the right order.

How the word is built

• chihuahua (proper-noun place name used as a common noun); the dog name reproduces the Spanish spelling of the Mexican state Chihuahua, with no English prefix, root, or suffix added

People who misspell chihuahua also struggle with

Of the Spelling Garden players who got chihuahua wrong the first time, this is how many also got each of these wrong.

• reconnaissance 90% of them got it wrong
• manoeuvre 90% of them got it wrong
• connoisseur 90% of them got it wrong
• idiosyncrasy 83% of them got it wrong
• heterogeneous 60% of them got it wrong
• accommodations 58% of them got it wrong