A wild dog or canine found in Mexico and Central America, also spelled 'coyote.'
From Nahuatl 'coyotl' via Spanish 'coyote,' this is an early alternate spelling of coyote that persisted in some English texts before the modern spelling standardized.
The spelling 'coyan' shows us how Spanish borrowed the Nahuatl word 'coyotl' and then English had to decide how to spell it—different writers came up with 'coyan,' 'coyote,' and other variations before 'coyote' won out, which reminds us that English spellings are actually pretty recent and messy inventions.
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