CEHOORS (2)

Word of the Week:
A feature wherein TileHead highlights a word that is is especially interesting or unusual (and, incidentally, useful in Scrabble play):

CEHOORS (2)

(unscramble the letters to form this week's word...)

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(answer below, after a little more spoiler space....)

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This week's word is...

SOROCHE n. pl. -S

• Definition: mountain sickness, especially in the Andes Mountains; altitude sickness

• Front hooks: (none)
• Back hooks: -S
• Anagrams: CHOOSER (n. pl. -S)
• Longer extensions: (none)
• Wraparounds: (none)
• Other Spellings: (none)
• Related Forms: (none)

TileHead says:

• English borrowed SOROCHE from Spanish, but it derives ultimately from the Quechua suruchi, the name for a mineral (antimony) found in the Andes Mountains to which altitude sickness in that region of the world was once erroneously attributed.  Hence, it came to mean "mountain sickness" in general.

• Quechua is a language spoken by some South American native peoples of Peru and parts of Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, and Ecuador. It has contributed a relatively small number of terms to English, but a few other Scrabble-acceptable words derived from Quechua include GUANO, INTI, JERKY, PUMA, QUINOA, QUIPU, and VICUNA.