guagua

• IPA^(key): /ˈɡwaɡwa/ [ˈɡwa.ɣ̞wa]
• Rhymes: -aɡwa
• Syllabification: gua‧gua

Onomatopoetic of the sound made by the wheel suspension of the bus. (The public transport buses in the Canary Islands were not very modern in the early years.) The Royal Spanish Academy considers this etymology debatable.

guagua f (plural guaguas)

1. a trivial thing
2. (Caribbean, Canary Islands) bus (with a fixed route)

   Synonyms: colectivo (Argentina, Mexico), combi, pesero (Mexico City)

3. (Cuba, Dominican Republic) hemipter

   Synonym: hemíptero

Borrowed from Quechua wawa (“infant, child”). Possibly imitative of a baby's sound.

guagua f (plural guaguas)

1. (Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru) baby, infant

   Synonym: bebé

   • 1915, Julio Vicuña Cifuentes, Mitos y Supersticiones Recogidos de la Tradición Oral Chilena, page 53:

     [Los duendes] son pequeñitos y visten como las guaguas, con el mismo traje que llevaban en vida.

     (please add an English translation of this quotation)

2. (Peru) a type of sweet bread shaped like a baby

• nene

• “guagua”, in Diccionario de la lengua española [Dictionary of the Spanish Language] (in Spanish), online version 23.7, Royal Spanish Academy [Spanish: Real Academia Española], 2023 November 28