cholla

American  

[chohl-yah, -yuh, chaw-yah] / ˈtʃoʊl jɑ, -jə, ˈtʃɔ jɑ /

noun

chollas plural

1. any of several spiny treelike cacti belonging to the genus Opuntia, especially O. fulgida of the southwestern U.S. and Mexico, having knobby outgrowths and yellow spines.

---

cholla British  

/ ˈtʃoʎa, ˈtʃəʊljɑː /

noun

1. any of several spiny cacti of the genus Opuntia that grow in the southwestern US and Mexico and have cylindrical stem segments See also prickly pear

---

Other Word Forms

Noun Inflected Forms

• chollas
  plural

Etymology

Origin of cholla

First recorded in 1855–60, from Mexican Spanish cholla “head” (perhaps from dialectal Old French cholle “ball,” from Germanic)

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

cholla chollas

On Camino Escalante, Guthrie’s squat, orange brick house is set back from the road behind a lawn planted with prickly pear, agave, cholla and yucca.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Feb. 13, 2026

And spines can become lodged in people’s skin if they so much as brush against a cholla.

From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 1, 2024

Over three decades, neighborhood foresters have transformed Dunbar Spring’s bald curbsides into lush forests of mesquite, hackberry, cholla and prickly pear cactus and more—all plants that have edible parts.

From Salon ● Jan. 29, 2024

The giant boulders stuck out like warts among the prickly barrel cactuses and the sun-haloed cholla plants.

From New York Times ● Jan. 24, 2023

The cholla and juniper shivered in the wind, and the rumps of the two gray mules were twin moons in front of him.

From "Ceremony:" by Leslie Marmon Silko

At night, cars speed along the desert roads, their headlights casting meager light against the dark or illuminating the tops of the chollas.

From Los Angeles Times ● May 26, 2021

I pulled over, to the side of the dirt road, and told him to get out, happy to leave him among the chollas and scrubby piñon trees.

From Salon ● Oct. 15, 2015

Surrounded by chollas, bur sage, and the comical scurrying of collared lizards, McCandless pitched his tent in the puny shade of a tamarisk and basked in his newfound freedom.

From "Into the Wild" by Jon Krakauer

Here, on a low, sun-scorched rise dotted with chollas and indigobushes and twelve-foot ocotillo stems, McCandless slept on the sand under a tarp hung from a creosote branch.

From "Into the Wild" by Jon Krakauer

There are many varieties of chollas and all are decorative.

From The Book of the National Parks by Yard, Robert Sterling