horchata

English

Jar of horchata (white)

Etymology

Borrowed from Spanish horchata, ultimately from Vulgar Latin *hordeata (“(drink, food) made of barley”), from hordeum (“barley”), either via Catalan/Valencian orxata (possibly via a Mozarabic source), or via Italian orzata.

Also cognate to English and French orgeat (“almond syrup”) and Surinamese Dutch orgeade.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /(h)ɔːɹˈt͡ʃɑːtə/

Noun

horchata (countable and uncountable, plural horchatas)

1. A sweet beverage variously made with rice, chufa or morro seeds (or, historically, barley), water, sugar, and cinnamon, and sometimes with milk.
   • 2011, Miguel-Angel Galindo, Domingo Ribeiro, Women’s Entrepreneurship and Economics: New Perspectives, Practices, and Policies, Springer Science & Business Media, →ISBN, page 66:

     Manufacturers from the villages surrounding the capital of the region came each day to the city of Valencia with carts pulled by donkeys to sell fresh horchata, tiger nuts and barley water.

   • For more quotations using this term, see Citations:horchata.

Translations

sweet beverage

• Catalan: orxata (ca) f
• French: horchata (fr) f
• Spanish: horchata f

Further reading

• horchata on Wikipedia.Wikipedia
• “horchata”, in Lexico, Dictionary.com; Oxford University Press, 2019–2022.

Spanish

Etymology

Possibly from Catalan/Valencian orxata (possibly via a Mozarabic source), from Vulgar Latin *hordeata, from Latin hordeum (“barley”). However, the word was attested relatively late in Catalan as well (17th-18th century), so this is uncertain. Alternatively, it may be of Italian origin; cf. orzata (“barley water”).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /oɾˈt͡ʃata/ [oɾˈt͡ʃa.t̪a]
• Rhymes: -ata
• Syllabification: hor‧cha‧ta

Noun

horchata f (plural horchatas)

1. horchata (sweet beverage)

Derived terms

• horchatería

 

See also

• agua fresca

Further reading

• “horchata”, in Diccionario de la lengua española, Vigésima tercera edición, Real Academia Española, 2014
• horchata on the Spanish Wikipedia.Wikipedia ^es