Mexican Name Finder
Salsa or sauceMayaYucatán

Xnipec

"dog's nose"

Also called X'nipek, Xni pec.

Say it

shnee·PEK

Built from

ni'nose+pek'dog

What Xnipec means

Xnipec is a Mexican salsa or sauce name of Maya origin meaning "dog's nose". It is built from ni' (nose) and pek' (dog). It is pronounced shnee-PEK, and it is most associated with Yucatán.

A habanero, onion and sour-orange salsa named for what it does to you: it makes your nose run cold and wet like a dog's. The Yucatec Maya reading is standard, and Wiktionary compares Itzá ni' and pek'.

Xnipec is one of the many Mexican food words formed in Maya. Spanish borrowed it, and in several cases English borrowed it again from Spanish. See how Nahuatl builds words and the full list of Mexican food names.

This is a site about what Mexican words mean, so there is no recipe here. For the name itself: Salsa simply means sauce. The interesting names are the older ones: mole from Nahuatl mōlli, guacamole from āhuacamōlli, and pico de gallo, "rooster's beak", whose name nobody can fully explain.

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Xnipec means dog's nose

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