jacana
/ˌʒɑsəˈnɑ/noun
jacana is a noun meaning “Any of a group of wading birds in the family Jacanidae, usually having long toes and claws, and found throughout the world” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). It is spelled J-A-C-A-N-A, and it appears about once in every 38 million words in written English (wordfreq, 2021 data). The plural of jacana is jacanas.
What does jacana mean?
noun
- 1
Any of a group of wading birds in the family Jacanidae, usually having long toes and claws, and found throughout the world.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
How do you pronounce jacana?
- US /ˌʒɑsəˈnɑ/
- US /ˌd͡ʒɑsəˈnɑ/
- US /d͡ʒəˈkɑːnə/
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
Forms of jacana
- jacanas plural
- jaçana
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
How common is jacana?
Jacana appears about once in every 38 million words in written English, the 189,524th most frequent word form in the list.
Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
Jacana in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese
In the sense bird of the family Jacanidae:
| Language | Words |
|---|---|
| French | jacana |
| Portuguese | jaçanã |
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Translations are Wiktionary's, by sense; a linked word has its own PlainSpell page.
Where does jacana come from?
Borrowed from Brazilian Portuguese jaçanã, from Old Tupi îasanã.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).