alpaca

Etymology

It is borrowed from Spanish alpaca,^{[2][3][4][5][6]} which the OED dates in Spanish to before 1602 for the animal and to 1778 for its wool and the cloth made from it.^[2] The Spanish word is from Aymara allpaqa,^[2][7][1][8] written allpaca by Merriam-Webster and the Oxford dictionaries;^[5][9][6] Etymonline and Barnhart call the Aymara source probable.^[3][4] Etymonline relates it to Quechua p'ake (“yellowish-red”),^[3] and Barnhart, more cautiously, to p'áko (“alpaca”).^[4] Ayto takes the Aymara word as a derivative of pako (“reddish-brown”), from the colour of the animal's hair.^[10] Hoad, Klein and Partridge give a Quechua source instead, alpako in Hoad and alpaca in Klein and Partridge, from paco (“reddish, yellowish red”).^[11][12][13] The OED compares the earlier name paco, which it takes from Spanish paco and paqo.^[2] According to Etymonline the initial syllable is perhaps due to the many Spanish words that begin with the Arabic article, as in almond;^[3] Skeat took it as the Arabic article itself, and Weekley as Spanish el (“the”) reshaped after the many Spanish words with the Arabic article.^[14][15]

Earliest recorded meaning

The South American animal: 1747, in J. Campbell's Spanish Empire in America.^[2] Merriam-Webster Unabridged also gives 1747,^[5] while Etymonline and Barnhart date the word to 1792,^[3][4] and Dictionary.com to 1805–15.^[8] The animal was known in English earlier as paco: from 1604 in the OED,^[2] and Etymonline finds pacos about 1600, Barnhart in 1753.^[3][4]

Semantic evolution

From the animal the name passed to its wool (1792), to a fabric made of the wool (1845, in an advertisement in an Iowa newspaper) and to a garment, especially a coat, of that fabric (1853, now rare); it has been used before nouns, "made of alpaca", since 1824.^[2] Merriam-Webster Unabridged and Collins also apply it to cotton or rayon cloth made in imitation of alpaca, used for linings.^[5][16] Early English forms include alpaco, probably influenced by paco, and alpagna, perhaps influenced by vicuña.^[2] Zoologists now place the animal in the genus of the vicuña, from which Merriam-Webster thinks it probably descends.^[5][2]

Timeline

• 1747 – the domesticated South American animal.^[2][5]
• 1792 – the wool of the alpaca.^[2]
• 1824 – before nouns, made of alpaca wool.^[2]
• 1845 – a fabric made of alpaca wool.^[2]
• 1853 – a garment, especially a coat, of alpaca.^[2]

Meanings

Noun

1. A domesticated South American mammal of the camel family, related to the llama and kept for its long, fine, woolly hair: The farm keeps a small herd of alpacas.^[5][2][16]
2. The wool of this animal: a scarf knitted from alpaca.^[5][2][16]
3. A light cloth woven from this wool, often mixed with other fibres, or a cotton or rayon imitation of it, used especially for linings.^[5][16][2]
4. (rare) A garment, especially a coat, made of alpaca.^[2][1]

Adjective

1. Made of alpaca wool or cloth: an alpaca waistcoat.^[2]

Related words

• paco

Usage notes

Collins also records alpaca, sometimes spelled alpacca, as the name of a kind of nickel silver used in jewellery, and gives its origin as uncertain.^[16]

References

1. ^ a b c Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d e f Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
4. ^ a b c d e Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
6. ^ a b Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
7. ^ The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
8. ^ a b Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
9. ^ Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
10. ^ Ayto, John (2005), Word Origins: The Secret Histories of English Words from A to Z, 2nd ed., London: A & C Black
11. ^ Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
12. ^ Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
13. ^ Partridge, Eric (1966), Origins: A Short Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, 4th ed., London: Routledge & Kegan Paul
14. ^ Skeat, Walter W. (1911), A Concise Etymological Dictionary of the English Language, new ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
15. ^ Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
16. ^ a b c d e Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins