Cuban

How to spell cuban

5 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce cuban

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does cuban mean?

1. adjectiveRelating to Cuba, its people, or its culture.
2. nounA person from Cuba or of Cuban descent.

Cuban in a sentence

• adjective

  The restaurant served a traditional cuban rice and bean dish.

• noun

  Every cuban at the conference spoke warmly about their hometown.

• adjective

  He collects cuban stamps from the 1950s.

• noun

  Her grandfather was a cuban who settled in Florida.

Where does cuban come from?

Language of origin: Spanish

This word is formed from the place name Cuba combined with the English suffix -an, which marks something or someone as belonging to a place. The island's name comes to us through Spanish, the language of the colonisers who arrived after 1492, but Cuba itself almost certainly traces back to the language of the Taíno people who lived there before European contact. Scholars usually link it to a Taíno word such as 'cubao', thought to mean something like 'fertile land' or 'great place', though the exact original form is debated. The -an ending is the same productive suffix found in 'Mexican', 'American' and 'Italian', borrowed long ago from the Latin adjective ending -anus, which also meant 'belonging to'. In careful writing the word is normally capitalised as 'Cuban', and the spelling trap is simply the single 'b' and the soft -an ending, which writers occasionally double or extend by mistake.

How the word is built

• Cuba (the island nation)
• -an (adjective/noun suffix meaning 'belonging to' or 'native of')