Guan
name, noun ·Uncommon ·Advanced level
Definitions
- 1 Any (member) of several species of birds in the genera Aburria, Chamaepetes, Oreophasis, Penelope, Penelopina, and Pipile, of the family Cracidae, limited to the Americas.
"The 'true' (Penelope) guans also occur at a range of altitudes but like most species of cracids, are mostly restricted to forest, both montane and lowland. Piping-guans (Pipile) are primarily lowland species, whereas numerous monospecific (single-species genus) taxa of guans (i.e. Aburria, Penelopina, Oreophasis) are restricted to montane environments."
- 2 any of several large turkey-like game birds of the family Cracidae; native to jungles of tropical America; resembling the curassows and valued as food wordnet
- 1 A surname.
Example
More examples"There appears to be some noticeable artifacts of Chinese in modern Mandarin and modern Japanese, because "Tu shu guan" and "To sho kan" both mean "library" in those languages, respectively."
Etymology
From American Spanish, from Kuna kwama.
From any of four Chinese surnames: 關／关 (guān), 官 (guān), 管 (guǎn), or 灌 (guàn).
Related phrases
More for "guan"
Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.