Word.ws English Dictionary

quena

quena noun: a traditional flute of the Andes.

quena: a traditional flute of the Andes
Image: Jordi Coll Costa, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Noun

quena (plural quenas)

  1. A traditional flute of the Andes.
    • One song the group performed on Thursday, “La Partida,” featured lovely bell harmonics from the guitars, a shifting pattern of cross‐rhythms on the guitar‐like charango, and a quena lead.1978 April 14, “Music: Inti‐Illimani, From the Andes”, in The New York Times, →ISSN
    • As the band’s traditional instrumentalist, Yuri Callisaya, shrilled on the quena, the band’s fans sang along with Mr. Méndez: “Ama sua, ama llulla, ama quella,” which translates as, “Don’t steal, don’t lie, don’t be lazy.”2013 December 31, William Neuman, “Headbanging in Bolivia to the Flutes of Yore”, in The New York Times, →ISSN

Forms of quena

pluralquenas
alternative formkena

Origin of quena

Borrowed from Spanish quena.

Questions about quena

What does quena mean?
Quena means a traditional flute of the Andes.
What part of speech is quena?
Quena is a noun.
What is the plural of quena?
The plural of quena is quenas.

Words near quena in the dictionary

  1. quemed
  2. Quemenes
  3. quemes
  4. queming
  5. Quemoy
  6. quena
  7. quenacho
  8. quenachos
  9. quenas
  10. quench
  11. quench'd

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: quena (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this entry: “quena.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/quena. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.