querencia

From Spanish querencia.

• (UK) IPA^(key): /kɛˈɹɛnsɪə/

querencia (plural querencias)

1. (bullfighting) The area of the bull-ring where the bull makes its stand. [from 1930s]
   • 1977, Alistair Horne, A Savage War of Peace, New York Review Books 2006, p. 332:

     Once hit, a rebel unit must be hit again, and remain hit; the army must penetrate the querencia where – like a fighting bull – it was at home, and stay there, driving it out into unknown and unfriendly territory.

   • 1994, Cormac McCarthy, The Crossing:

     The wolf paced and circled limping on three legs and then crouched by the iron stake where it seemed she’d made her querencia.

From querer (“to want”) +‎ -encia.

• (Castilian) IPA^(key): /keˈɾenθja/, [keˈɾẽn̟θja]
• (Latin America) IPA^(key): /keˈɾensja/, [keˈɾẽnsja]

querencia f (plural querencias)

1. an animal's lair
2. (bullfighting) the bull's querencia
3. the homing instinct of an animal
4. longing, want
5. homesickness, nostalgia

• aquerenciar

• la cabra siempre tira al monte

• “querencia” in Diccionario de la lengua española, Vigésima tercera edición, Real Academia Española, 2014.