Nahuatl words and what they mean

“water”

ātl (water)

The single most productive element in Nahuatl place names and personal names; it is the a- at the start of Acapulco, Atlixco and ajolote. The final -tl is the absolutive ending that drops in compounds.

“house”

calli (house)

The third day sign and one of the most frequent compound endings: tlaxcalli (tortilla, literally the house of the maize cake), jacal, Mexicalli. Arenas glosses it simply as casa.

“woman”

cihuātl (woman)

The base of cihuapilli (noblewoman) and of Cihuacoatl, both a goddess and the title of the second-highest office in Tenochtitlan. Colonial dictionaries give a wide range of senses from matron to female of any species.

“star”

cītlalin (star)

Arenas records citlalin for a star or comet. It is the source of the very common girl's name Citlali or Citlalli, and of Citlaltepetl, star mountain, the Nahuatl name of Pico de Orizaba.

“serpent; twin”

cōātl (serpent)

Arenas glosses coatl as culebra. The fifth day sign, and the -coatl of Quetzalcoatl and Coatlicue. The twin sense underlies Mexican cuate for a buddy.

“eagle”

cuāuhtli (eagle)

The fifteenth day sign and the eagle of the flag. Careful: cuahuitl (tree, wood) is a different word that also shows up as cuauh- in compounds, so Cuauhtemoc is descending eagle while Cuauhnahuac (Cuernavaca) is near the trees.

“wind”

ehēcatl (wind)

The second day sign and an aspect of Quetzalcoatl, worshipped in round temples so the wind could pass around them. Related to ehēca, to blow.

“sky, heaven”

ilhuicatl (sky)

The sky as a physical vault. Combined with atl it gives ilhuicaatl, the sea, literally sky-water, the Nahuatl name for the ocean that met the Spanish ships.

“deer”

mazātl (deer)

The seventh day sign, from Proto-Nahuan *masaa-. Mazatlan means place of deer. After contact the same word was stretched to cover horses, first called maçatl by people who had never seen one.

“moon; month”

mētztli (moon, month)

One word covers moon and month, as Arenas's gloss mes shows. A separate metztli with a short vowel means thigh; the two are distinct words that colonial spelling does not separate, which is why some name lists mistranslate it.

“mother”

nāntli (mother)

Arenas glosses nantli as madre. Nahuatl kinship terms are normally possessed, so you meet it as nonantli or nonan, my mother, more often than bare. Tonantzin, our revered mother, is the name attached to the Guadalupe shrine.

“jaguar”

ōcēlōtl (jaguar)

The fourteenth day sign and the animal of the jaguar warriors. It means jaguar, never the smaller ocelot; colonial dictionaries translate it as tigre or leon because Spanish had no word for the American cat.

“man, male”

oquichtli (man, male)

Bnf_362 glosses it as hombre, varon, and the male of any species. Oquichtli marks maleness and courage; the general word for a person, either sex, was tlācatl.

“noble; child”

pilli (noble, nobleman); in compounds, child

Two senses that often confuse readers of name lists: on its own pilli is a noble, plural pipiltin, but in compounds and diminutives it means child, as in piltontli (little boy) and metlapil (the metate's child, its roller).

“precious feather”

quetzalli (quetzal tail feather), from quetza (to raise, stand)

Because the long green tail feathers were treasure, quetzalli became the standard metaphor for anything precious, and quetzal- opens dozens of names. Sahagun's Florentine Codex lists it among the feathers of tribute.

“father”

tahtli (father)

Also spelled tatli or tatl. Like nantli it is normally possessed: notahtzin, my honoured father. The -tzin is the reverential suffix that turns up in Mexican names such as Cuauhtemotzin.

“god, sacred power”

teōtl (god)

Bnf_362 glosses teotl as Dios. It gives Teotihuacan and teocalli (temple, god-house). Some scholars argue it named an impersonal sacred force rather than a personal god, and that the friars narrowed it to match the Christian sense.

“mountain, hill”

tepētl (mountain)

Arenas glosses tepetl as cerro or sierra. Half the map of Mexico ends in -tepec, the locative of this word: Chapultepec, Tehuantepec, Coatepec. Paired with altepetl, water-mountain, the Nahuatl word for a city-state.

“earth, land”

tlālli (earth, land)

Arenas glosses tlalli as tierra. It appears as tlal- in compounds such as tlālcacahuatl (peanut, earth-cacao) and in the deity name Tlaltecuhtli, lord of the earth.

“fire”

tletl (fire)

Arenas glosses tletl as lumbre, candela, fuego. It appears as tle- in tlecuilli (hearth) and in the New Fire ceremony held every 52 years, the toxiuhmolpilli.

“rabbit”

tōchtli (rabbit)

The eighth day sign, and a year name in the 52-year cycle. Rabbits were linked to pulque and drunkenness: the drink's many gods were called the Centzon Totochtin, the four hundred rabbits.

“sun”

tōnatiuh (sun), from tōna (to be warm, to shine)

Arenas glosses tonatiuh as day or sun. Grammatically it is a verb form, roughly it goes on shining, not an ordinary noun. Related to tōnalli (day, heat, day-sign) and tōnalpōhualli, the 260-day count.

“flower”

xōchitl (flower)

Carochi glosses it plainly as flor. It is the most common Nahuatl element in Mexican given names, and xochi- prefixes dozens of compounds: xochimilco, xochicalli, cempasuchil. Spanish speakers usually say SOH-cheel.

“heart”

yōllōtl (heart), from yōli (to live)

Built on the verb to live, so the heart is literally the living thing. Carochi records the idiom yollo pachihui, to finish understanding something, showing that the heart was also the seat of thought.

“avocado”

āhuacatl (avocado)

English avocado came through Spanish aguacate, reshaped by folk association with abogado (lawyer). The viral claim that āhuacatl primarily meant testicle is wrong: the fruit sense is primary, the ordinary 16th-century word for testicle was ātetl, and Proto-Nahuan *hewaka-tl may originally have referred to the fruit's thick skin.

“axolotl”

ātl (water) + xōlōtl (servant, page)

English kept the Nahuatl spelling axolotl while Spanish regularised it to ajolote. The second element is usually read as xōlōtl (servant, page), also the name of the dog-headed god Xolotl, though some analyses treat the ātl- as added to distinguish it from unrelated near-homonyms.

“maize gruel drink”

ātōlli (maize drink), from ātl (water)

A hot drink of maize masa thinned with water; the chocolate version is champurrado. The word survives in US Southwest English as atole, and in the Mexican idiom tener atole en las venas, to have gruel in your veins, said of someone with no fire.

“meat cooked in a covered pit”

Taino barbakoa (framework of sticks)

Taino, from the raised wooden frame used for curing meat or for sleeping. The French barbe a queue (beard to tail) story is pure folk etymology. In Mexico barbacoa now means pit-steamed mutton or goat, a technique closer to Maya pib than to the Caribbean original.

“cacao bean”

cacahuatl (cacao bean)

Molina 1571 glosses cacahuatl as grano de cacao. Campbell and Kaufman argue Nahuatl itself borrowed it from Mixe-Zoquean *kakawa, the language of the Olmec area where cacao was first cultivated; that loan is a scholarly proposal, not a settled fact. English cocoa is a 17th-century misspelling of cacao, confused with coco (coconut).

“cannibal”

Taino caniba (Carib)

From the Taino name for the Caribs, recorded by Columbus; Carib, Caribbean and cannibal are all the same word. Nothing to do with the Aztecs, despite how often the word turns up in writing about them.

“canoe”

Taino *kanowa (dugout canoe)

The first Amerindian word recorded in Spanish, taken in the Caribbean in 1492, decades before Cortes reached Mexico. Often assumed to be Nahuatl because canoes are so associated with the lakes of Tenochtitlan; the Nahuatl word was acalli.

“chewing gum latex”

tzictli (chicle, chewing gum)

Nahuatl tzictli is the latex of the sapodilla tree, chewed long before Europeans arrived. It is Nahuatl, not Maya, even though most chicle was tapped in the Maya lowlands; the tappers there are called chicleros. English chiclet comes from the Adams brand name.

“chilli pepper”

chīlli (chilli pepper)

Straight from Nahuatl chīlli through Spanish; the English spellings chili, chilli and chile all descend from it. The Texan dish chili is short for chile con carne and has nothing to do with the country Chile, whose name is unrelated.

“smoked chilli”

chīlli (chilli) + pōctli (smoke)

A transparent compound: a smoked chilli, normally a smoke-dried jalapeno. The frequent English spelling and pronunciation chipoltle, with the l before the t, reverses the original order of the Nahuatl parts.

“chocolate”

disputed; see note

Reached English through Spanish; the Nahuatl form first appears in writing around 1580. The popular derivation from xococ (bitter) + atl (water) is rejected by most linguists: xocolatl is unattested in Classical Nahuatl and the shift from /sh/ to /ch/ inside Nahuatl has no parallel. Dakin and Wichmann propose an earlier chicolatl, from the chicoli beater stick plus atl (water), the tool used to froth the drink.

“tree resin burned as incense”

copalli (incense)

Carochi glosses copalli as incienso de la tierra, the local incense, in contrast with imported frankincense. English uses copal as a general term for any hard tree resin, well beyond the Mexican product.

“coyote”

coyōtl (coyote)

From coyōtl, reconstructed to Proto-Nahuan *koyoo-tl. Molina's 1555 vocabulary already lists cuyutl for a wolf or fox, showing the Spanish had no word for the animal. In Mexican Spanish coyote also means a fixer or people smuggler, a much later extension.

“epazote herb”

epatl (skunk) + tzotl (sweat, grime)

Literally skunk-sweat, named for its pungent smell. The herb is cooked with beans across central Mexico; English kept the Spanish form rather than translating the unflattering Nahuatl image.

“avocado sauce”

āhuacatl (avocado) + mōlli (sauce)

Molina 1571 already records ahuacamolli as a dish of avocados with chilli. Since āhuacatl means the fruit, the internet reading of guacamole as testicle sauce is a joke built on a mistranslation, not an etymology.

“hammock”

Taino *hamaka (hanging net bed)

Taino, recorded by Columbus on his first voyage. Not Nahuatl and not Maya, though hammocks are the everyday bed of Yucatan; the Yucatec Maya word is k'aan.

“woven leather sandal”

kwarachi (sandal)

Not Nahuatl: it comes from Purepecha (Tarascan), spoken in Michoacan. Also spelled guarache. The Mexico City antojito of the same name is called that because the masa base is shaped like the sole of a sandal.

“hurricane”

Taino *hurakā (storm)

Taino, from the Caribbean, not Nahuatl and not Maya. The popular link to the K'iche' Maya god Juraqan of the Popol Vuh is a coincidence of sound that scholars do not accept as the source of the Spanish word.

“adobe or wattle hut”

xāmitl (adobe) + calli (house)

Nahuatl xahcalli is a contraction of xāmitl (adobe) and calli (house). The derivation of English shack from jacal is a real proposal but far from settled; Wiktionary and the OED file shack's origin as unknown, with rival guesses from ramshackle and from Romani hak (place, house).

“yam bean root”

xīcamatl (jicama), shortened to xīcama

Borrowed into Spanish in the 16th century from the apocopated form xīcama. English took it from Mexican Spanish in the 20th century and usually drops the accent, but the stress stays on the first syllable.

“maize, corn”

Taino *mahis (maize)

Taino, borrowed in the Caribbean in the 1490s. Nahuatl had its own rich vocabulary for maize (centli, tlaōlli, ēlōtl, xīlōtl) and none of it reached Spanish as the general word; people who assume maize is Nahuatl are a century and a sea off.

“agave spirit”

metl (maguey) + ixca (to bake, roast) + -lli

Literally oven-cooked maguey, describing the roasted agave hearts. English mescal was also applied to the unrelated mescal bean and to peyote's alkaloid mescaline, which is why the drug name and the drink share a syllable.

“mesquite tree”

mizquitl (mesquite tree)

Molina 1571 defines mizquitl as the gum tree used for ink. English mesquite came overland through northern Mexican Spanish rather than through books, which is why the spelling kept the Spanish -qu-.

“prickly pear cactus”

nohpalli (prickly pear cactus)

The pads are nopales, the fruit is the tuna. The nopal on the Mexican flag is part of the founding image of Tenochtitlan, an eagle on a cactus growing from a rock.

“ocelot”

ōcēlōtl (jaguar)

The Nahuatl word meant the jaguar, not the ocelot: Molina 1571 glosses ocelotl as tigre. The naturalist Buffon coined French ocelot from it in the 18th century and attached it to the smaller spotted cat, so the English animal carries the wrong cat's name.

“potato”

Taino batata (sweet potato) crossed with Quechua papa (potato)

English potato is Taino, not Nahuatl: it comes from Spanish patata, a blend of Taino batata (sweet potato) with Andean Quechua papa, which is why one English word covers two unrelated plants. Mexican Spanish kept papa; Spain says patata.

“peyote cactus”

peyōtl (cocoon; downy covering)

Molina 1571 glosses peyotl as capullo de gusano, a caterpillar's cocoon, and as tela del corazon, the membrane around the heart; the plant is presumably named for its fuzzy white tufts. Clavijero in 1780 is the first to define it plainly as a medicinal plant used in ritual.

“quetzal bird; precious feather”

quetzalli (quetzal tail feather), from quetza (to raise, stand up)

In Nahuatl quetzalli was the long green tail feather, the bird itself being quetzaltōtōtl; Spanish took the feather word and applied it to the bird. Because the feathers were treasure, quetzal- in compounds and names means precious or beautiful, as in Quetzalcoatl.

“tobacco”

probably Taino, from a word for a roll of tobacco leaves or a smoking tube

Caribbean, not Nahuatl; a minority view derives the Spanish word from Arabic tubbaq, a name for an unrelated herb, which may have shaped the form. The Nahuatl word for tobacco was picietl or yetl.

“maize dough steamed in a wrapper”

tamalli (maize dough cooked in a wrapping)

Molina 1571 glosses tamalli as maize bread wrapped in husks and cooked in a pot. English borrowed the Spanish plural tamales first and back-formed a singular tamale that no Mexican uses; in Mexico it is one tamal, two tamales.

“tomato”

tomatl (tomatillo)

Classical Nahuatl tomatl was the tomatillo, the small green husk tomato; the red tomato was xitomatl, from xictli (navel) + tomatl. That is why Mexican Spanish still says jitomate for the red one and tomate for the green one, while English tomato collapsed the two.

“bulrush, cattail”

tōllin (rush, reed)

The same root gives the place name Tula and the Tule fog of California's Central Valley, named for the marsh reeds. Bnf_362 glosses tolin as the rush that is commonly called tule.

“flunky, yes-man”

ātl (water) + chichinqui (one who sucks)

Robelo's reading makes it the mine worker who drained seepage water, later any lackey who does the dirty work. A rival derivation from achichinequiztli (a whiner) exists, so the water-sucker gloss is the usual one rather than the proven one.

“to cuddle, to pamper”

reduplicated pātzoā (to press, squeeze, soften)

The much-repeated gloss to hug with the soul is a modern romantic invention, not a translation: the Nahuatl source pahpātzoā means to press, mash or bruise, and the Spanish sense simply softened from squeezing to cuddling. Nothing in the etymology mentions a soul.

“peanut”

tlālcacahuatl, from tlālli (earth) + cacahuatl (cacao bean)

Literally earth-cacao, named for a bean that ripens underground. Mexico says cacahuate where Spain says cacahuete and much of South America says mani, from Taino.

“sweet potato”

camohtli (sweet potato tuber)

The plant itself is Andean, but Mexico took the Nahuatl name rather than the Taino batata. Tragar camote means to mumble or be tongue-tied, and hacerse camote is to get muddled.

“marigold”

cempōhualli (twenty) + xōchitl (flower)

Literally twenty-flower, for the many petals; twenty was also the base of Nahuatl counting and often just means many. The orange marigold whose scent is said to guide the dead home on Dia de Muertos.

“kid, youngster”

chamāhua (to fatten, to grow) or chamāhuac (thick, grown)

Usually traced to the Nahuatl root for growing plump, an affectionate way to name a child. A rival proposal makes it Maya rather than Nahuatl, and neither has been proved; treat the Nahuatl reading as likely, not certain.

“grasshopper”

chapolin (grasshopper)

Bnf_362 glosses chapolin as langosta, locust. Toasted chapulines are an Oaxacan staple, and Chapultepec, grasshopper hill, is the same root plus tepētl.

“flat griddle”

comālli (griddle)

The disc of clay or steel that tortillas are cooked on. The Nahuatl word goes back to Proto-Nahuan *komaal-, so the object is far older than the Spanish contact period.

“twin; buddy”

cōātl (serpent; twin)

The standard reading is from cōātl, whose twin sense appears in the god-name Coatlicue's circle and in cōātl compounds; the semantic jump from serpent to twin is real in Nahuatl but has been questioned, and some derive cuate instead from a shortened coate. Mexican Spanish uses it for both a fraternal twin and a close friend.

“green bean”

exōtl (green bean)

Bnf_362 defines exotl as the bean still in the pod. Mexico and Central America say ejote where Spain says judia verde and the Southern Cone says chaucha or poroto verde.

“fresh ear of corn”

ēlōtl (tender ear of maize)

Nahuatl distinguished ēlōtl (a tender green ear), xīlōtl (an even younger ear), ōlōtl (the bare cob) and tlaōlli (dried shelled maize); Mexican Spanish kept elote and olote. A dried ear is a mazorca.

“kid, brat”

itzcuintli (dog)

Literally dog. The same root gives the hairless breed xoloitzcuintle. Calling a child an escuincle is affectionate or rude depending entirely on tone.

“foreigner, especially a US citizen”

Spanish griego (Greek), as in hablar en griego, to talk gibberish

Not Nahuatl and not Mexican in origin: it is recorded in Spain in the 18th century, before the Mexican-American War, from griego in the sense of unintelligible speech, the same idea as English it's all Greek to me. The stories about green coats and green grow the lilacs are invented after the fact.

“turkey”

huehxōlōtl (male turkey)

Arenas 1611 glosses huexolotl as gallo de la tierra, the local rooster. The Nahuatl word properly named the male bird; the hen was totolin, which survives in Mexican totol. Spain and most of Latin America say pavo.

“reciprocal gift-giving; the Oaxacan festival”

Zapotec guelaguetza (offering, reciprocal exchange)

Zapotec, not Nahuatl. It names the village obligation to give with the expectation of receiving in turn, and by extension the July festival in Oaxaca city that took the name in the 20th century.

“woman's woven tunic”

huīpīlli (woman's garment)

Rincon glosses huipilli simply as vestidura de muger. The garment is pre-Hispanic and still woven in Oaxaca, Chiapas and Yucatan, where the Maya version is called a hipil.

“red tomato”

xictli (navel) + tomatl (tomatillo)

Literally navel-tomatl, from the dimple at the stem end. In central Mexico jitomate is the red tomato and tomate is the green tomatillo; in the north and abroad tomate covers both, which is why the two words confuse Mexicans from different states.

“rope, cord”

mecatl (cord, rope)

Molina 1571 glosses mecatl as cordel, soga or a whip of cords; it is related to mecānia, to hang. Mecate is standard in Mexico and Central America where Spain says cuerda.

“grinding stone”

metlatl (grinding slab)

The flat stone on which maize is ground, worked with a hand roller called a metlapil, from metlatl plus pilli in its child sense, literally the metate's child.

“maize field”

mīlli (cultivated field) + -pan (in, on)

A locative, literally in the field, borrowed as a plain noun. A milpa is not just a cornfield but the intercropped system of maize, beans and squash, so the word carries an agricultural method with it.

“stone mortar”

mōlli (sauce) + caxitl (bowl)

Literally sauce-bowl. The three-legged basalt mortar; its pestle is the tejolote, from texolotl. Salsa ground in one is sold as salsa molcajeteada.

“kite”

pāpalōtl (butterfly)

The Mexican word for a kite is simply the word for butterfly. Elsewhere in Spanish a kite is a cometa or barrilete, so papalote marks a speaker as Mexican or Cuban.

“woven palm mat”

petlatl (woven mat)

The sleeping mat, reconstructed to Proto-Nahuan *pətla-. It survives in the idiom petatearse, to die, literally to be rolled up in your mat, and in the phrase el muerto al pozo y el vivo al gozo.

“drinking straw”

popōtl (straw; broom plant)

The plant used for brooms gave its name to the drinking straw. Other Spanish-speaking countries say pajita, pitillo, sorbete or caña, so popote is a reliable Mexican marker.

“owl”

tecolōtl (owl)

Bnf_362 glosses tecolotl as buho. The saying cuando el tecolote canta, el indio muere ties the bird to death omens, a belief older than the Spanish arrival. Standard Spanish uses buho or lechuza.

“fermented pineapple drink”

tepiatl (a maize drink) or tepachoa (to press, crush)

Wimmer glosses tepiatl as a maize drink given to people who faint, and the original tepache was maize-based; pineapple rind and piloncillo came later. Both proposed sources are plausible and neither is settled.

“open-air street market”

tiyānquiztli (marketplace)

Bnf_362 glosses tianquiztli as feria, plaza o mercado. The Spanish form probably comes from a possessed form such as ītiyānquiz rather than the bare noun, which explains the missing ending. Still the everyday word for a weekly street market.

“youngest child of a family”

xōcoyōtl (youngest child)

Still used affectionately in Mexico for the baby of the family, often shortened to xoco. It is a genuine Classical Nahuatl kinship term, unlike many of the Nahuatl-flavoured names sold on baby-name sites.

“black vulture”

tzopīlōtl (vulture)

Arenas glosses tzopilotl as aura. Used across Mexico and Central America; Spain says buitre. Also slang for someone who circles waiting to profit from another's misfortune.

“jaguar”

Yucatec Maya báalam (jaguar), from Proto-Mayan *bʼahlam

Also glossed guardian of the forest: the balamob are protective spirits of the milpa. The word runs through Maya titles and the Chilam Balam books, whose name means roughly jaguar interpreter.

“limestone sinkhole with water”

Yucatec Maya tsʼonoʼot (hole with water)

Yucatec Maya, not Nahuatl. The Spanish spelling cenote comes from the colonial form dzonot. Cenotes were the drinking water of the flat Yucatan peninsula, which has almost no rivers, and were used for offerings.

“rain; the rain god”

Yucatec Maya cháak (rain)

The ordinary word for rain and the name of the hook-nosed rain god; Yuum Cháak is Lord Rain. In the plural the chaakoʼob are the spirits who bring the rain, still invoked in the chaʼa cháak ceremony.

“small”

Yucatec Maya chan (small)

In Yucatec chan means small, and it is also a very common Maya surname. Do not confuse it with the Ch'olan and Classic Maya chan meaning sky or snake; the Yucatec word for snake is kaan.

“cigar, cigarette”

disputed; see note

Genuinely unsettled. One proposal derives it from a Mayan verb for smoking rolled leaves, compare Yucatec siyar and Q'eqchi' sikʼar; the other from Spanish cigarra (cicada), from the shape of the roll. Dictionaries file the origin as uncertain, so treat any confident Maya claim with suspicion.

“star; black”

Yucatec Maya ekʼ (star) and eʼek (black)

Two similar-sounding words that outsiders regularly merge: ekʼ is a star, eʼek is black. Ek Balam, the ruin in Yucatan, is usually read as black jaguar rather than star jaguar.

“water”

Yucatec Maya jaʼ (water, rain, lake), from Proto-Mayan *haʔ

Written ha or haʼ in colonial and tourist sources, jaʼ in the modern Yucatec alphabet. It is the -ha of Yaxha (green water) and Uxmal-area place names, and the Maya counterpart of Nahuatl ātl.

“resin, dew, sacred substance”

Maya itz (resin, sap, dew, nectar)

A word for the sticky, precious exudates of the world: sap, dew, milk, tears. Epigraphers link it to the itzam sacred-power complex and to Itza, the group behind Chichen Itza, though the name's exact reading is argued over.

“sun, day”

Yucatec Maya kʼiin (sun, day, time)

One word for sun, day, date and time, the base unit of the Maya calendar: a kʼiin is a day, twenty of them a winal. It is not the same as the Nahuatl tōnatiuh, though the two languages both merge sun and day.

“mound, hill, pyramid”

Yucatec Maya múul (mound, hill, pyramid)

In Yucatan an unexcavated ruin is a muul, a grassy mound that is really a buried pyramid; the word covers both. It is behind site names such as Muyil and Xmuul.

“house”

Yucatec Maya naj (house)

The oval thatched Maya house. Written na in colonial and tourist spellings, naj in the modern alphabet. It is the Maya equivalent of Nahuatl calli and appears in ruin names such as Sayil's Naj Tunich.

“plumeria flower”

Yucatec Maya nikteʼ (plumeria, frangipani; flower)

The frangipani, and by extension the flower of love poetry: nikteʼ kʼaay is a love song and nikteʼil carries an erotic charge. Xtabentun and nikteʼ turn up constantly in Yucatecan branding, usually without the sense being explained.

“underground cooking pit”

Yucatec Maya píib (cooking pit)

The earth oven; cochinita pibil is pork cooked píibil, in the pit. The technique is the Yucatecan cousin of central Mexican barbacoa, though the word barbacoa itself is Taino.

“white”

Yucatec Maya sak (white)

Spelled sac or zac in colonial sources, sak today. It opens many place names, notably Sacbe, the white raised limestone road that linked Maya cities, and Sacalum, white earth.

“dog's nose”

Yucatec Maya x-niʼ (nose) + peekʼ (dog)

The name of the fierce Yucatecan habanero salsa; the usual explanation is that it makes your nose run like a dog's. That reading is generally accepted but rests on the transparent parts rather than on early attestation.

“lord, father”

Yucatec Maya yuum (father, lord, god)

The respectful title before the name of a god or an elder: Yuum Kʼáax, Lord of the Forest; Yuum Cháak, Lord of Rain. The older spelling yum is what you see on signs; yuum is the modern orthography.

“good afternoon”

cualli (good) + teōtlac (afternoon, evening)

Teotlac is attested in Arenas 1611 for the afternoon or evening. Like cualli tonalli, the greeting is a modern neo-Nahuatl formula built from genuine words.

“good day”

cualli (good) + tōnalli (day)

Both words are solidly attested (Arenas glosses cualli as bueno, Bnf_362 tonalli as dia), but the greeting itself is a modern construction on the Spanish buenos dias pattern rather than a phrase recorded in colonial sources.

“hello”

niltze (a call to get someone's attention)

Widely taught today as the Nahuatl for hello, but Molina 1571 glosses niltze as a hao, ola, oyes, an interjection for hailing someone, closer to hey there than to a formal greeting. The modern greeting use is a revival, not a straight survival.

“I love you”

ni- (I) + mitz- (you, object) + tlazohtla (to love, to esteem)

A single word carrying subject, object and verb, which is how Nahuatl normally works. The verb is built on tlazohtli, precious, so the sense is closer to I hold you dear than to romantic love alone.

“how are you?”

quēn (how) + tica (you are)

Quen is attested by Arenas as como or que. The question is common in modern spoken Nahuatl and in classes; expect regional variants such as quen tinemi and quen otimopanolti.

“thank you”

tlazoh- (precious) + mati (to know, to feel)

Literally something like I feel it as precious; Arenas glosses tlazocamati as tener en mucho estimo, to hold in high esteem. Often intensified to tlazohcamati huel miac, thank you very much.

“what is your name?”

tlein (what) + mo- (your) + tōcāitl (name)

The question most people come to Nahuatl for. The answer pattern is notoca..., my name is.... Tōcāitl also means fame or reputation, the same doubling English has in a good name.

“welcome; greetings”

xi- (imperative) + mo- (reflexive) + panoltia (to pass, to cross over)

Roughly may you pass through, said to someone arriving. Wimmer records the related panolti as a salutation addressed to a visitor or stranger, so this one has better colonial support than most modern Nahuatl greetings.