Chigoe
//ˈt͡ʃɪ.ɡoʊ// noun
noun ·Rare ·Advanced level
Definitions
Noun
- 1 A small tropical flea, Tunga penetrans, whose females burrow under the skin of animals, including humans, and lay their eggs, causing strong irritation and sores.
- 2 small tropical flea; the fertile female burrows under the skin of the host including humans wordnet
Etymology
Uncertain. Possibly from a Cariban language term such as Kari'na siko (“chigoe”) (early recorded variant chico), from Proto-Cariban *tikô, or else a West African borrowing such as Wolof or Yoruba jiga (“insect”). The eighteenth century historian Charlevoix refers to them as chique in his 1730 history of Hispaniola.
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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.