Chile, not Chili

I'm off to Chile for a fortnight's holiday. The main thing about Chile, etymologically speaking, is that it is not the origin of the word chili meaning spicy stuff in food. That word comes from the Aztecs who lived all the way up in Mexico. Oddly enough, our standard word for the Aztec equivalent of beer - pulque - is from a language spoken in what's now Chile: Araucanian to be precise. This language also gave us gaucho, meaning wanderer, and poncho, meaning woolen cloth.

So where does the name Chile come from? Nobody is very certain. But one theory is that it comes from a lost native language and means cold place or land's end. In which case it would be appropriate as the tip of Chile - Tierra del Fuego, or land of fire - is very cold even now, in their midsummer.

Santiago, though, is rather warm, which is why I'm going.

For more information about words of Chilean origin have a look at this old post about mamihlapinatapai.

The hotel was not as described