In my nature photography blog the other day I showed a close-up of a native bee heavily coated in pollen inside the flower of a prickly pear cactus. Some research indicated that the bee could well be in the genus Megachile, and my mind immediately began to play with that word as if it were made up of the prefix mega-, meaning ‘great,’ and chile ‘a type of spicy pepper.’ Well, what can you expect? I do live in Texas, after all, where hot sauce festivals are a fact of life.
So is etymology, and that’s what you’re here for. The Spaniards who colonized Mexico transformed the Nahuatl word for the spicy pepper, chilli, into chile, and English, in adopting the noun from Spanish, has spelled it in various ways, at least three of which are still in use: chilli, chili, and chile.
From chile came the Spanish verb enchilar ‘to season with chile,’ and from that came the particular food that English now likewise calls an enchilada. Mexican cuisine has become so familiar in the United States that English even has two idioms with that word in it: the big enchilada, meaning ‘the most important person in an organization,’ and the whole enchilada, which is to say ‘the whole matter, the whole thing.’
© 2013 Steven Schwartzman
Spanish-English Word Connections 
May 28, 2013 @ 15:16:42
So cool how words change and morph into new words and meanings!!!
May 28, 2013 @ 16:04:43
It is cool, even if cool isn’t an adjective we usually associate with chile.
May 28, 2013 @ 21:28:57
this was very interesting! i would never have connected enchilada with chile!
May 28, 2013 @ 21:58:33
It’s the same structure that embeds (or we could say embreads) pan into the word empanada, literally ‘in-bread-ed.’
May 28, 2013 @ 22:33:51
(a huge smile crossed my face!) thank YOU for that tip!
z
May 28, 2013 @ 22:39:32
You could say that connections like those have been bred into me. I guess that makes me an etymological empanada.
May 28, 2013 @ 23:11:04
two unexpected laughs tonight. thanks!
and everywhere i look, my eyes automatically process and match colors, decipher how to draw what’s there, look at negative space, etc!
May 29, 2013 @ 22:01:38
Megachile? That brings only one thing to mind. There’s nothing so good as Hatch chiles, and nothing that says New Mexico to me like ristras drying in the sun.
Thanks for your well-seasoned words!
May 29, 2013 @ 22:35:17
Central Market in Austin promotes Hatch chile here each year, though not as colorfully as in the photograph you linked to.
I’m glad my well-seasoned words had a chile-ing rather than a chilling effect.
Jun 02, 2013 @ 22:18:50
Language really *is* the spice of life.
Jun 02, 2013 @ 22:23:46
Well and appropriately said.
Jun 30, 2021 @ 10:18:16
Yes, but for one among us…(me) looking for a real etymology of “mega Chile” this post was sorely lacking (but it was fun, and so appreciated)
Jun 30, 2021 @ 10:27:23
So going off on a tangent
Didn’t really leave you plangent.