Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun A member of the group of Quechuan peoples of highland Peru who established an empire from northern Ecuador to central Chile before the Spanish conquest.
  • noun A ruler or high-ranking member of the Inca Empire.
  • noun A member of any of the peoples ruled by the Incas.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun One of the princes or rulers who governed Peru or one of its divisions previous to the Spanish conquest.
  • noun [capitalized] A member of the dominant tribe in Peru previous to the Spanish conquest.
  • noun In ornithology: A name of Leadbeater's cockatoo (Cacatua leadbeateri) of Australia, having the crest red, yellow, and white.
  • noun [NL.] The technical specific name of various birds: used only with a genericterm.
  • noun [capitalized] [NL.] A genus of terns or sea-swallows, Sterninœ, related to the noddies, having dark plumage with a bundle of white curly plumes on each side of the head. The only species is Sterna inca (Lesson), now Inca mystacalis (Jardine). See Nœnia.
  • noun A bird of this genus.
  • noun [capitalized] [NL.] A genus of scarabœoid beetles, comprising a number of large robust Mexican and Central and South American forms, usually of a reddish-bronze color, flying actively at midday and frequenting flowering trees.
  • noun A name given about 1850 to some varieties of alpaca cloth.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun An emperor or monarch of Peru before, or at the time of, the Spanish conquest; any member of this royal dynasty, reputed to have been descendants of the sun.
  • noun The people governed by the Incas, now represented by the Quichua tribe.
  • noun (Zoöl.) a small dove (Scardafella inca), native of Arizona, Lower California, and Mexico.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun A member of the group of Quechuan peoples of highland Peru who established an empire from northern Ecuador to central Chile before the Spanish conquest.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun a member of the Quechuan people living in the Cuzco valley in Peru
  • noun the small group of Quechua living in the Cuzco Valley in Peru who established hegemony over their neighbors in order to create an empire that lasted from about 1100 until the Spanish conquest in the early 1530s
  • noun a ruler of the Incas (or a member of his family)

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Spanish, from Quechua inka, ruler, man of royal lineage.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Spanish, from Quechua inka "emperor, male of royal blood".

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