nacho

Etymology

It is borrowed from Mexican Spanish,^[2][3][4] but the further origin is uncertain.^[3][2][4] The usual explanation is that it is borrowed from Spanish Nacho (“pet form of Ignacio”),^[3][5][6][7] the nickname of Ignacio Anaya, the man credited with creating the dish;^[3][8][9] the given name comes from Latin Ignatius.^[9] The American Heritage Dictionary and Etymonline give this origin without reservation,^[8][9] while the OED, revised in 2003, gives it only as "perhaps".^[3] The New Oxford Dictionary of New Words suggests that the plural nachos may come from a misunderstood possessive, Nacho's.^[2] Others compare the Spanish adjective of the same spelling, meaning "flat-nosed";^{[10][6][5][2]} the 4th edition of the American Heritage Dictionary took the word as possibly an alteration of ñato (“pug-nosed, ugly, poor”), itself an alteration of chato (“flat, snub-nosed”), from Vulgar Latin *plattus (“flat”).^[11]

Earliest recorded meaning

A tortilla chip topped with melted cheese and chilli: 1948, in an advertisement in the San Antonio Light of Texas.^[3] Merriam-Webster also gives 1948,^[10] while Etymonline dates the word only "by 1964".^[9]

Semantic evolution

The story of the dish is told in several versions.^[8][9][12] According to the American Heritage Dictionary, Ignacio Anaya was the maître d'hôtel of a restaurant in Piedras Negras, Mexico, and invented nachos in 1943.^[8] Etymonline calls him a restaurant bartender and dates the dish to about 1941, under the name Nachos Especial, "Nacho's Special"; according to a 1964 interview with Anaya in the Houston Post, the dish was a variant of the quesadilla, first made with a tortilla cut into quarters rather than with chips.^[9] According to Barry Popik, ladies from Eagle Pass, Texas, are said to have visited the Victory Club in Piedras Negras in June 1940, where Anaya, their waiter, made the dish for them and called it Nachos Especiales; later accounts name another restaurant, El Moderno.^[12] The New Oxford Dictionary of New Words notes that the original was a wedge of tortilla, garnished and toasted, and that the dish did not spread far beyond Texas and northern Mexico until the 1970s, becoming widely known through fast-food chains in the 1980s; in Britain it has always been made with corn chips.^[2]

Timeline

• 1948 – a tortilla chip topped with melted cheese and chilli; usually in the plural, a Texan or Mexican dish of these.^[3][10]

Meanings

Noun

1. A tortilla chip topped with melted cheese and often other savoury toppings such as chilli peppers or refried beans.^[10][3][13]
2. nachos: a dish or snack of such chips, originally from Texas and northern Mexico, often served as an appetizer: We shared a plate of nachos before dinner.^[3][2][5]

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f Knowles, Elizabeth; Elliott, Julia, eds. (1997), The Oxford Dictionary of New Words, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
4. ^ a b Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
5. ^ a b c Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
6. ^ a b Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
7. ^ Soanes, Catherine; Stevenson, Angus, eds. (2004), Concise Oxford English Dictionary, 11th ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
8. ^ a b c d The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
9. ^ a b c d e f Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
10. ^ a b c d Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
11. ^ The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (2000), 4th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin
12. ^ a b Popik, Barry, The Big Apple, barrypopik.com, p. "Nacho [Nachos]", 30 October 2006
13. ^ Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins