ayahuasca

From Spanish ayahuasca, from Quechua ayawaska, from aya (“spirit, ancestor”) + waska (“vine”).

• IPA^(key): /ˌaɪəˈwɑːskə/

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ayahuasca (usually uncountable, plural ayahuascas)

1. A giant vine native to South America (especially Banisteriopsis caapi), noted for its psychotropic properties.
2. Any of various psychoactive infusions or decoctions prepared from this vine.

   Synonym: yage

   • 2004, Martin Torgoff, Can't Find My Way Home […] , Simon & Schuster, →ISBN, page 414:

     As the Amazon forest people would take ayahuasca and enter into that place of Group Mind where they would make decisions for the tribe, the psychedelic shamanic acts that McKenna was promulgating would involve the experience of ecstasy and the contemplation of wholeness.

   • 2020, Emily Segal, Mercury Retrograde, New York: Deluge Books, →ISBN:

     Like many young women in that cultural era, she was excited to explain ayahuasca, and informed me that her appointment was scheduled for next week, when she would be leaving New York to visit family in Rio.

• IPA^(key): [ˈajavaska]

ayahuasca f

1. ayahuasca

• IPA^(key): /a.ja.was.ka/

ayahuasca m (uncountable)

1. ayahuasca

ayahuasca f (plural ayahuascas)

1. ayahuasca (Banisteriopsis caapi, a vine of South America)

   Synonym: iagê

2. ayahuasca (psychoactive infusion made from the ayahuasca vine)

   Synonym: daime

Borrowed from Quechua ayawaska.

• Rhymes: -aska
• Syllabification: a‧ya‧huas‧ca

ayahuasca f (plural ayahuascas)

1. ayahuasca
2. a psychotropic concoction prepared from said vine

• → English: ayahuasca

• “ayahuasca”, in Diccionario de la lengua española, Vigésima tercera edición, Real Academia Española, 2014