noun, masculine/kanˈɡɾexo/plural: cangrejos
crab
Related: agua de cangrejo, boca de cangrejo, cangrejal, cangrejero, cangrejo de los cocoteros, cangrejo de mar, cangrejo de río, cangrejo ermitaño, cangrejo guisante, cangrejo señal
From Old Spanish cangro (“crab”) + -ejo (diminutive suffix), with the first element derived from Latin cancer. Coromines and Pascual dismiss the possibility of a Vulgar Latin *cancriculus on the grounds that a likelier diminutive would have been *cancerculus, that there are no native cognates in other Romance languages, and that Old Spanish's sole word for crab was cangro.