Merriam-Webster Collegiate Dictionary - maya

 noun  (plural ~ or ~s)  Etymology: Spanish  Date: 1825  1.  a. a ~n language of the ancient ~ peoples recorded in inscriptions  b. Yucatec; especially the older form of that language known from documents of the Spanish period  2. a member of a group of Indian peoples chiefly of Yucatan, Belize, and Guatemala whose languages are ~n MAYA  noun  Etymology: Sanskrit maya  Date: 1788 the sense-world of manifold phenomena held in Vedanta to conceal the unity of absolute being; broadly illusion