lechuza

== Spanish == === Etymology === From Old Spanish nechuza, influenced by leche (“milk”) due to a popular belief that owls “breastfeed” human infants at night. Coromines supposes that Old Spanish nechuza developed via vowel dissimilation from an older *nochuza, a derivative of an also-unattested *nochua (as gentuza < gente), and that inherited from Latin noctua (“owl”). === Pronunciation === IPA(key): /leˈt͡ʃuθa/ [leˈt͡ʃu.θa] (Equatorial Guinea, Spain) IPA(key): /leˈt͡ʃusa/ [leˈt͡ʃu.sa] (Latin America, Philippines) Rhymes: -uθa (Equatorial Guinea, Spain) Rhymes: -usa (Latin America, Philippines) Syllabification: le‧chu‧za === Noun === lechuza f (plural lechuzas) owl barn owl (any species of owl from the family Tytonidae) ==== Coordinate terms ==== búho ==== Derived terms ==== === References === Coromines, Joan; Pascual, José Antonio (1984), “lechuza”, in Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico [Critical Castilian and Hispanic etymological dictionary]‎[1] (in Spanish), volume III (G–Ma), Madrid: Gredos, →ISBN, page 617 === Further reading === “lechuza”, in Diccionario de la lengua española [Dictionary of the Spanish Language] (in Spanish), online version 23.8.1, Royal Spanish Academy [Spanish: Real Academia Española], 15 December 2025 “lechuza”, in Diccionario de americanismos [Dictionary of Americanisms] (in Spanish), Association of Academies of the Spanish Language [Spanish: Asociación de Academias de la Lengua Española], 2010 lechuza on the Spanish Wikipedia.Wikipedia es