Word of the day · Tuesday, November 3, 2026

cajon

noun

A box-shaped drum from Peru. The player sits on top and slaps the front face, which sounds like a bass drum near the center and a snare near the edges.

Where it comes from

Spanish cajón, big box or drawer, from caja, box.

Worth knowing

Afro-Peruvian musicians developed the cajon by the 1800s, possibly from shipping crates. It spread to flamenco in the 1970s and is now a staple of acoustic sets.

By the letters

• 5letters
• 2vowels (A E I O U)
• Juncommon letters
• 5different letters

Playing it

CAJON is one of the friendlier J words: J between two vowels, no Q or X to worry about. In most word lists the accent is dropped.

One letter away

Words you get by changing a single letter, the steps of a word ladder.

• canon
• capon
• caxon

In Unsaid

CAJON was word of the day number 16 in Unsaid, a falling-letter word game where every player gets the same word on the same date. As a word it scores 550 points. Under the current rules, spelling it as the word of the day is worth a bonus of 9,100 reading down or 6,825 reading across, before any streak. How the bonus works.