Texan

How to spell texan

5 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce texan

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does texan mean?

1. nounA person from Texas, or relating to the American state of Texas.

Texan in a sentence

• Every texan at the conference spoke proudly of their home state.

• The recipe was inspired by classic texan barbecue.

Where does texan come from?

Language of origin: Spanish

This word is formed from the place name Texas plus the suffix -an, which English uses to mark someone or something belonging to a place. The name Texas itself traces back to a word in the language of the Caddo people, taysha, which meant 'friends' or 'allies'. Spanish explorers and missionaries adopted this as Tejas (and sometimes Texas), using it to describe the friendly local groups, and the spelling settled with an 'x' that in older Spanish was pronounced like the modern 'h' sound. When the territory passed into English usage in the nineteenth century, the 'x' spelling stuck even though the pronunciation followed an English 'ks'. The result is a word where the demonym is built simply by adding -an, so the only real spelling point is keeping the single 'x' and the unstressed second vowel.

How the word is built

• Texas (place name)
• -an (suffix meaning 'belonging to' or 'native of')