Search results
Some people have suggested that it might come from Basque jauntxo (lord, landowner) but the time it's first attested in English (the 1940s) makes Japanese much more likely. Also, AFAIK no word has gone directly from Basque to English, and "honcho" doesn't exist in Spanish.
1 lis 2023 · The AOS commits to changing all English-language names of birds within its geographic jurisdiction that are named directly after people (eponyms), along with other names deemed offensive and exclusionary, focusing first on those species that occur primarily within the U.S. or Canada.
Honcho comes from a Japanese word for "group leader," hancho, from han, "corps or squad," and cho, "head or chief." I wanted to use the word in a corporate email, and needed to make sure it wasn't offensive to some a$$hole accidently.
1 sty 2024 · Dozens of bird species will have their English names changed in an attempt to avoid associations with “historic bias” and exclusionary practices. The American Ornithological Society (AOS) said ...
1 lis 2023 · The American Ornithological Society announced Wednesday, Nov. 1, 2023, that birds in North America will no longer be named after people. In 2024, it will begin to rename around 80 species found in the U.S. and Canada.
Honcho dates back—in English—to at least 1945, as World War II was coming to a close. American prisoners learned the word while in captivity in Japan. In Japanese, the word translates as "squad leader," from han, meaning "squad," and chō, meaning "head, chief."
The earliest known use of the noun honcho is in the 1940s. OED's earliest evidence for honcho is from 1945, in the Coshocton Tribune (Coshocton, Ohio). honcho is a borrowing from Japanese.
