canyon English · revision 13530

− It is American English, borrowed from Mexican [[bor|es|cañón]], an extended sense of Spanish cañón, tube, pipe,^(Barnhart 1988)^(Etymonline)^(Hoad 1986) which is of uncertain origin.^(Barnhart 1988) It is usually taken as an augmentative of caño, tube, or caña, cane, from Latin canna, reed (see [[cane]]),^(Etymonline)^(Hoad 1986)^(NODE 1998) but since the Spanish word is attested in 1560–75 as callón, Barnhart and Merriam-Webster suggest it may come from calle, street, from Latin callis, path, in the sense “narrow way”.^(Barnhart 1988)^(MWU 2024)