Spanish Words That Start with Ñ: 23+ Uniquely Spanish Terms

If Nyan Cat were a Spanish creation, would it be spelled Ñan Cat? Well… yes, actually!

You likely already know words that contain the letter ñ—consider año (year), mañana (morning, tomorrow) and bañarse (to have a bath).

But Ñan Cat actually starts with the letter ñ, and it’s certainly not the only Spanish word that does.

In fact, many of my students are surprised when I tell them there are some words that start with this letter that are used every day!

So without further ado, here are 23+ Spanish words that start with ñ that are either commonly used or have a particularly interesting history.

Contents

• 1. Ña
• 2. Ño
• 3. Ñu
• 4. Ñoño
• 5. Ñaño
• 6. Ñato
• 7. Ñuzco
• 8. Ñoñez / Ñoñería
• 9. Ñoqui
• 10. Ñongo
• 11. Ñaque
• 12. Ñandú
• 13. Ñáñara
• 14. Ñomblo
• 15. Ñatear
• 16. Ñangazo
• 17. Ñamería
• 18. Ñandubay
• 19. Ñampearse / Ñampeado
• 20. Ñacurutú
• 21. Ñeembucú / Ñeembuqueño
• 22. Ñañiguismo / Ñáñigos
• 23. Ñangotarse
• The History and Pronunciation of the Letter Ñ
• And One More Thing…

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1. Ña

English: Mrs.

The form Ña is a shortened version of the word Doña, used in front of the names of elderly women. Ña is especially used in rural South America.

2. Ño

English: Mr.

A shortened version of Señor, used in front of the name of elderly men in rural South America.

3. Ñu

English: Wildebeest, gnu

This is one of the words in this list almost every Spanish-speaking person knows.

I remember they taught us this word in school when we were learning the alphabet. From that moment on, I never forgot it.

El ñu azul es hervívoro. (The blue wildebeest is a herbivore.)

4. Ñoño

English: Bland, dull, blah, boring, drippy, namby-pamby

Ñoño is another word that is very commonly used, especially in Spain.

It can refer to both things and people, and it has quite a wide range of meanings, but they all have something in common: blandness, boredom, lack of life.

This word is an adjective, so it has to agree in gender and number with the noun it modifies:

Eres una persona muy ñoña. (You are a very boring person.)

¡Qué ñoño eres! (You’re so drippy!)

5. Ñaño

English: Close friend; spoiled; homosexual; brother; kid

According to the DRAE, ñaño can be used as an adjective and a noun.

I had personally never heard of it before, but it is widely used in some South American countries:

• In Bolivia, Ecuador and Peru, it refers to a close friend.
• In Colombia and Panama, it means “spoiled,” as in a spoiled child.
• In Panama, it is also used to refer to a homosexual person.
• In parts of Argentina, Bolivia and Ecuador it means “brother” (same mother and father).
• In Peru, it is also used to refer to a child.

6. Ñato

English: Pug-nosed; boxer

Having grown up watching telenovelas means I heard the word ñato a lot as a child, even though now I don’t generally use this word.

Ñato is a mainly Latin American word used to refer to people who have a pug nose. The equivalent in Spain is chato.

It was funny for me to discover this word also means “boxer” in Uruguay. It must be because most of them get their noses smashed sooner or later!

7. Ñuzco

English: The Devil

This is how people in Honduras refer to the devil. Creepy.

8. Ñoñez / Ñoñería

English: Inanity; insipidness; spinelessness

Both of these Spanish words are nouns that come from the word ñoño (see above). They are both used to refer to people who either are ñoño or are simply acting like it.

9. Ñoqui

English: Gnocchi

Right here you can see the love we have for “Spanishizing” every word we can. The whole world pronounces this word practically the same, but we decided to also write it in Spanish.

(It reminds me of the word fútbol (football), and I still don’t know how to feel about it!)

10. Ñongo

English: Intrusive, indiscreet

This word is used mainly in Cuba to refer to a person who wants to know way too much.

11. Ñaque

English: Junk

This is one of the words on this list that is not commonly used anymore.

It originally referred to a touring theater company consisting of only two people. Later on, it began to mean “junk” or “stuff,” as in “a lot of impractical, useless things.”

12. Ñandú

English: Rhea (South American ostrich)

The ñandú is the second animal on this list.

I remember learning this word when I was a kid, and we actually used to refer to it as the ostrich whose name starts with ñ.

13. Ñáñara

English: Laziness

Ñáñara is an amazing word with two ñ’s, and it’s a colloquial way of saying pereza (laziness) in Honduras.

14. Ñomblo

English: Obese

The word ñomblo is how Nicaraguan people say obeso (obese).

15. Ñatear

English: To snort

Ñatear is how they say esnifar (to snort) in Nicaragua.

Do you remember the word ñato (pug-nosed)? They belong to the same family of words!

16. Ñangazo

English: Bite

A ñangazo is a mordisco (bite) in Costa Rica and the Dominican Republic.

Pay attention to the ending -azo, which is a Spanish suffix mainly used as an augmentative.

17. Ñamería

English: Madness

I have loved this word ever since I learned it. They use it in Panama to say locura (madness), as in when someone loses their mind.

¡Qué ñamería! (What a madness!)

18. Ñandubay

English: A type of tree in the pea family

The ñandubay (Latin name prosopis affinis) is a flowering tree of the pea family native to Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay.

It is a melliferous tree. Yummy!

19. Ñampearse / Ñampeado

English: To go crazy / Crazy

Ñampearse is a pronominal verb used colloquially in Panama to say someone has gone crazy (has lost their mind).

The past participle ñampeado is normally used as an adjective meaning loco (crazy).

20. Ñacurutú

English: Great horned owl

The last animal on this list in the great horned owl, or the ñacurutú.

I personally had no idea this animal existed, but if you ever travel to Argentina, Paraguay or Uruguay, you are probably in for a treat.

21. Ñeembucú / Ñeembuqueño

English: Department in Paraguay / People born in this Department

This is a very specific pair of words, but I wanted to add them because they sound so graceful to me.

Ñeembucú is a Department (administrative region) in Paraguay. People born there are called ñeembuqueños.

22. Ñañiguismo / Ñáñigos

English: A Cuban secret society / People in this society

I am including these two words because when I discovered them I was absolutely fascinated.

The Ñáñigos are members of a Cuban secret society for men, similar to the Freemasons. If you have some time, you can read a little bit about them here.

Ñañiguismo is the word that refers to practicing the canons established by this society.

23. Ñangotarse

English: To squat; to humiliate onself; to be disheartened

Ñangotarse is a verb mainly used in Puerto Rico and some parts of the Dominican Republic.

It has three main meanings, which in standard Spanish would be ponerse en cuclillas (to squat), humillarse (literally “to humiliate oneself”) and perder el ánimo (to be disheartened, literally “to lose one’s spirit”).

The differences in meaning are big enough for me to wonder how people are able to understand what’s being said… but then again, I live in a country (Poland) where the same word can mean a lock, a castle and a zipper. It’s all about context!

The History and Pronunciation of the Letter Ñ

Before the printing press was invented, Latin scribes had to copy books by hand in order to distribute them to multiple people. This was very time-consuming work, so around the 12th century, some scribes created a system to save time and effort.

They started adding a tilde ~ (not to be confused with the Spanish tilde or accent mark) over some letters to indicate that the letter was, in fact, doubled.

A couple of centuries passed and this system was somehow forgotten—except for one double letter: nn. Scribes kept using the tilde when they encountered a double n, and so, with time, the letter ñ became a letter in its own right.

More often than not, the letter ñ in Spanish indicates that the original Latin word contained a double n. There are, however, other letter combinations, like gn and ni, that would also become an ñ with time:

signa → seña (sign)

Hispania → España (Spain)

A search on Palabrasque lists 13,573 Spanish words containing the letter ñ. Nowadays, it is not only an independent letter that can be found in Spanish dictionaries, but also a symbol of the Spanish language.

Sometimes, the pronunciation of ñ is a source of stress for Spanish learners, especially when it appears at the beginning of a word.

Assuming you know English, however, you can use some fairly common English words to practice this sound. Say “canyon” or “onion” and focus on the bolded sound—that’s the ñ we were looking for.

So, Spanish contains a lot of words that include the letter ñ, but only a fraction of them start with it. Use the FluentU program to learn more about these words and how to use them naturally thanks to hundreds of Spanish videos.

FluentU takes authentic videos—like music videos, movie trailers, news and inspiring talks—and turns them into personalized language learning lessons.

You can try FluentU for free for 2 weeks. Check out the website or download the iOS app or Android app.

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It’s now your turn to learn them and use them with your Spanish-speaking friends—I bet they don’t know them all!

Related Posts

Download: This blog post is available as a convenient and portable PDF that you can take anywhere. Click here to get a copy. (Download)

And One More Thing…

If you've made it this far that means you probably enjoy learning Spanish with engaging material and will then love FluentU.

Other sites use scripted content. FluentU uses a natural approach that helps you ease into the Spanish language and culture over time. You’ll learn Spanish as it’s actually spoken by real people.

FluentU has a wide variety of videos, as you can see here:

FluentU brings native videos within reach with interactive transcripts. You can tap on any word to look it up instantly. Every definition has examples that have been written to help you understand how the word is used. If you see an interesting word you don’t know, you can add it to a vocab list.

Review a complete interactive transcript under the Dialogue tab, and find words and phrases listed under Vocab.

Learn all the vocabulary in any video with FluentU’s robust learning engine. Swipe left or right to see more examples of the word you’re on.

The best part is that FluentU keeps track of the vocabulary that you’re learning, and gives you extra practice with difficult words. It'll even remind you when it’s time to review what you’ve learned. Every learner has a truly personalized experience, even if they’re learning with the same video.

Start using the FluentU website on your computer or tablet or, better yet, download the FluentU app from the iTunes or Google Play store. Click here to take advantage of our current sale! (Expires at the end of this month.)