Quechua
Americannoun
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Quechuas,
plural
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Quechua
plural
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the language of the Incan civilization, presently spoken by about 8 million people in Peru, Ecuador, Bolivia, Chile, and Argentina.
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a member of an Indigenous people of Peru speaking Quechua.
adjective
noun
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a member of any of a group of South American Indian peoples of the Andes, including the Incas
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the language or family of languages spoken by these peoples, possibly distantly related to the Tupï-Guarani family
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Etymology
Origin of Quechua
First recorded in 1680–90; from Spanish Quechua, Quichua, possibly from Quechua qichwa, qhichwa “temperate valley, people who live in a temperate valley”; possibly from Quechua kkechúwa “robber, plunderer”
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
For the study, Bigham and her team of evolutionary anthropologists collected DNA from Peruvian Andean Quechua speakers.
From Science Daily ● Aug. 10, 2026
Bolivia is a country of 12 million people, many of them members of the Aymara and Quechua indigenous groups living in the high mountains.
From The Wall Street Journal ● May 21, 2026
“Pancho started giving us these very specific, not only slang, but also Quechua words and things that would make it feel very specifically Ecuadorean,” Cordova says.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 20, 2025
María Antonia de Paz y Figueroa, more commonly known by her Quechua name of “Mama Antula,” was born in 1730 into a wealthy family in Santiago del Estero, a province north of Buenos Aires.
From Seattle Times ● Feb. 9, 2024
I am almost inclined to find a trace of a similar association in the Quechua word for fingers=pallca and the title palla bestowed upon noble women.
From The Fundamental Principles of Old and New World Civilizations by Zelia Nuttall
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
