Chilean

How to spell chilean

7 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce chilean

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does chilean mean?

1. adjectiveRelating to Chile, its people, or its culture.
2. nounA person who is a native or citizen of Chile.

Chilean in a sentence

• adjective

  The restaurant serves a rich chilean stew made with corn and beef.

• noun

  As a proud chilean, he flew the flag of his home country on the balcony.

• adjective

  She studied the chilean economy for her thesis on copper exports.

• noun

  The conference welcomed one chilean among the delegates from across South America.

Where does chilean come from?

Language of origin: Spanish

This word is simply the country name Chile combined with the English suffix -an, which marks a person or thing as belonging to a place, as in 'American' or 'Mexican'. The name Chile itself reaches English through Spanish, the Spaniards having recorded it during their sixteenth-century conquest of the region. Its ultimate origin is debated among scholars: many trace it to an indigenous word, perhaps from the Mapuche language meaning roughly 'where the land ends', or from an Aymara or Quechua term, while others link it to a native word for a bird with a distinctive cry. Because the source is genuinely uncertain, no single confident story can be told about the name. The spelling trap in English lies entirely in the ending: writers must keep the 'e' of Chile and add -an, producing the -ean cluster, rather than the tempting but wrong 'Chilian' or 'Chillean'.

How the word is built

• Chile (the country name)
• -an (adjective/noun suffix meaning 'belonging to or coming from')