Food & drinkMyths & disputes

chocolate

Spanish took chocolate from a Nahuatl word for a cacao drink, chocolātl, whose own origin is unclear; Spanish, Italian, Dutch and French merchants carried the drink across Europe, and English then took the word on to Asia and Africa, so that it now runs from Tagalog tsokolate to Shanghainese 巧克力.

Weakest linkCertain

The story you may have heard

That chocolātl is xocolātl, 'bitter water' (xococ 'bitter' + ātl 'water'). The form xocolātl is not attested in colonial sources and the sound change it needs does not work; the first element remains unexplained.

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1570Classical Nahuatl

Hops are evenly spaced; labels show the year each form is first attested.