zanja

Borrowed from Spanish zanja.

• (General American) IPA^(key): /ˈzɑn.hə/

zanja (plural zanjas)

1. An irrigation canal in Latin America.

• zanjero

• IPA^(key): /ˈθanxa/ [ˈθãŋ.xa] (Equatorial Guinea, Spain)
• IPA^(key): /ˈsanxa/ [ˈsãŋ.xa] (Latin America, Philippines)
• Rhymes: -anxa
• Syllabification: zan‧ja

Borrowed from Basque zanga, ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *sengh- (possibly borrowed via Proto-Celtic [Term?]).

zanja f (plural zanjas)

1. ditch; trench

   Synonyms: trinchera, cuneta

zanja

1. inflection of zanjar:
   1. third-person singular present indicative
   2. second-person singular imperative

• Sobre la etimología del vasco zanga y del español zanja, Fernando Fernández Palacios, in Fontes linguae vasconum: Studia et documenta, Navarra:Institución Príncipe de Viana, 1969. Accessible at Fundación Dialnet

• “zanja”, in Diccionario de la lengua española [Dictionary of the Spanish Language] (in Spanish), online version 23.8.1, Royal Spanish Academy [Spanish: Real Academia Española], 15 December 2025