kahunas n.pl. testicles; cojones. Also kahoonas. Editorial Note: Can be used in all the same ways as other slang terms for “testicles.” This kind of transformation of a Spanish word into substantially different Anglicized spellings, which in turn represent a different pronunciation, is a sign of its nearly complete adoption into English. There may, however, be some confluence with kahuna ‘a powerful person or leader,’ especially in the common form big kahuna. Mark Liberman at Language Log has written more about cojones/kahuna. Etymological Note: From the Spanish cojones ‘testicles.’ (source: Double-Tongued Dictionary)
Further reading
Aman from Cape Cod, Massachusetts, grew up in a region of India where an e– sound was added to English words beginning with consonant clusters, such as scooter and school. Later he noticed the same pattern in Spanish. The sound-sequencing rules that...
If you mistype something, that’s a typo. But what do you call it when your voice-to-text program mistypes as you’re dictating? Is that a mico, as in microphone? Plus, the word sycophant has a long and surprising history that goes all the way back to...