Also quinua. [Sp. spelling of Peruvian (Quichuan) kinua, kinoa.] An annual plant (Chenopodium Quinoa, N.O. Chenopodiaceæ) found on the Pacific slopes of the Andes, cultivated in Chili and Peru for its edible farinaceous seeds. Also attrib.
1625. Purchas, Pilgrims, IV. VII. xiii. 1465. They had Maiz, Quinua, Pulse.
1760–72. trans. Juan & Ulloa’s Voy. (ed. 3), I. 289. This useful species of grain, here called quinoa, resembles a lentil in shape, but much less, and very white.
1880. C. R. Markham, Peruv. Bark, 484. The earliest mention of the quinua grain of Peru occurs in the ‘Cronica’ of Pedro de Cieza de Leon. Ibid., 485. The Indians also make a beverage of the quinua, as they do of the maize.
1886. A. H. Church, Food Grains Ind., 110. Quinoa seeds are extremely small.
