A small, noisy brown bird found in Mexico and Texas that makes a loud, repetitive call.
From Mexican Spanish 'chachalaca,' an onomatopoeia that imitates the bird's distinctive three-note call: 'cha-cha-la-ca.' The word originated in Mexico and entered English from Spanish-speaking regions of North America.
The bird's name is literally the sound it makes—it's an onomatopoeia that native speakers thought sounded like 'chachalaca!' Other cultures name birds this way too, like the 'kookaburra' in Australia.
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