lechuza

From Old Spanish nechuza, influenced by leche (“milk”) due to a popular belief that owls “breastfeed” human infants at night.^[1]

Coromines supposes that Old Spanish nechuza developed via vowel dissimilation from an older *nochuza, a derivative of an also-unattested *nochua (as gentuza < gente), and that inherited from Latin noctua (“owl”).

• IPA^(key): /leˈt͡ʃuθa/ [leˈt͡ʃu.θa] (Spain)
• IPA^(key): /leˈt͡ʃusa/ [leˈt͡ʃu.sa] (Latin America, Philippines)

• Audio (Spain):

  (file)

• Rhymes: -uθa (Spain)
• Rhymes: -usa (Latin America, Philippines)
• Syllabification: le‧chu‧za

lechuza f (plural lechuzas)

1. owl
2. barn owl (any species of owl from the family Tytonidae)

• búho

• Joan Coromines, José A[ntonio] Pascual (1984) “lechuza”, in Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico [Critical Castilian and Hispanic Etymological Dictionary] (in Spanish), volume III (G–Ma), Madrid: Gredos, →ISBN, page 617

• “lechuza”, in Diccionario de la lengua española [Dictionary of the Spanish Language] (in Spanish), online version 23.8, Royal Spanish Academy [Spanish: Real Academia Española], 10 December 2024
• “lechuza”, in Diccionario de americanismos [Dictionary of Americanisms] (in Spanish), Association of Academies of the Spanish Language [Spanish: Asociación de Academias de la Lengua Española], 2010
• lechuza on the Spanish Wikipedia.Wikipedia ^es