Araucania

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A historical and geographic region spanning parts of southern Chile and western Argentina, home to the Mapuche people
2. An area in the southern part of Chile and neighboring Argentina, traditionally inhabited by the Mapuche population
3. The name of a territory in South America stretching across southern Chile and adjacent Argentinian lands and associated with the Mapuche

Etymology: Araucania is a proper noun, so its story is really the story of a place name that English borrowed from Spanish. The Spanish form "Araucanía" was built on "Arauco", the name of a province and town on the Chilean coast, and the suffix "-ía" was added in the same way Spanish forms many territorial names. The Spanish name was then carried into English, where it denotes the region of southern Chile and neighbouring parts of Argentina. The name is tied to the Mapuche, the Indigenous people of that territory. The English term "Araucanian" was long used for the Mapuche themselves, which is why the place name and the people's name remain closely linked in older writing, though the Mapuche identify with their own name.