burrito

The wrap burrito is first found in print in English in Erna Fergusson’s Mexican Cookbook, published in 1934 in New Mexico. However, the burrito described in this cookbook is more like what we’d call a tostada today.

In Mexico, the term seems to have arrived at its modern meaning in the late 1800s; an 1895 dictionary lists the modern usage as one of its meanings, with the other being a regional slang term for “taco”. In Mexican Spanish, burrito originates from a diminutive of burro (donkey). The food is probably so named because it resembles a rolled-up pack often found on the back of a donkey.

The Spanish word burro descends directly from the Latin burricus, meaning small horse, which itself is named after the color burrus, meaning reddish-brown. Latin burrus is a borrowing from Greek πυρρός (purros), meaning flame-colored, yellowish-red, or tawny. The Greek color is clearly named after its root πῦρ (pur), meaning fire, like we see in the borrowed English prefix pyro-.