> I remember being told that Spanish cucaracha is from Arabic.
According to the __Diccionario de la lengua española__, 22nd edn.,
Real Academia Española 2001, the term cucaracha is derived from
cuca, feminine of cuco, a term of omomatopoeic origin
meaning 'caterpillar' which the dictionary compares to late Latin
cucus and Greek kókkyx 'cuckoo'.