amolli.

Headword: 
amolli.
Principal English Translation: 

soap that derives from a plant root (see Karttunen and Lockhart)

IPAspelling: 
ɑhmoːlli
Frances Karttunen: 

AHMŌL-LI soap / raíz conocida que sirve de jabón (R). In the derived form AHMOHUIĀ the vowel of the second syllable is short, and the L is lost. See AHMOHUIĀ.
Frances Karttunen, An Analytical Dictionary of Nahuatl (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1992), 6.

Lockhart’s Nahuatl as Written: 

ahmōl-li = soap
James Lockhart, Nahuatl as Written: Lessons in Older Written Nahuatl, with Copious Examples and Texts (Stanford: Stanford University Press and UCLA Latin American Studies, 2001), 211.

Attestations from sources in English: 

The Florentine Codex provides an illustration and a textual description of amolli (spelled hamolli in that manuscript). Above ground it has long, narrow reeds. Below ground, it has two types of roots. The smaller ones are used for soap, such as for washing one's hair. The larger roots can make one go bald. It can serve as a remedy; if one eats a leech, one needs to swallow an infusion of amolli. Small fish find amolli too toxic and can die from it.
Sahagún, Bernardino de, Antonio Valeriano, Alonso Vegerano, Martín Jacobita, Pedro de San Buenaventura, Diego de Grado, Bonifacio Maximiliano, Mateo Severino, et al. Historia general de las cosas de Nueva España (Florentine Codex), Ms. Mediceo Palatino 218–20, Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana, Florence, MiBACT, 1577. Available at Digital Florentine Codex/Códice Florentino Digital, edited by Kim N. Richter, Alicia Maria Houtrouw, Kevin Terraciano, Jeanette Peterson, Diana Magaloni, and Lisa Sousa, bk. 11, fol. 133r. Los Angeles: Getty Research Institute, 2023. https://florentinecodex.getty.edu/en/book/11/folio/133r . Accessed 18 November 2025.

See an image that represents amolli in the Visual Lexicon of Aztec Hieroglyphs, ed. Stephanie Wood (Eugene, Ore.: Wired Humanities, 2020-present).

maaltiaia, mahamoviaia, yoan moxocoqualiaia, quichioaia xocotamalli; yoan tlatonilli, anoҫo itzcuintli qujmjctiaia qujquaia, yoan tlaoanaia = They bathed with water; they washed [their heads] with amolli soap. And fruit was eaten—they made fruit tamales, and sauces. Or they slew and ate a dog, and they drank wine. (central Mexico, sixteenth century)
Fr. Bernardino de Sahagún, Florentine Codex: General History of the Things of New Spain; Book 3 -- The Origin of the Gods, Part IV, eds. and transl. Arthur J. O. Anderson and Charles E. Dibble (Santa Fe and Salt Lake City: School of American Research and the University of Utah, 1978), 9.

Auh no yquac, netzonpaco in tlamanj, motzopaca, mamouja = The captors washed their heads and washed off the sweat with a soap [called amolli]
Fr. Bernardino de Sahagún, Florentine Codex: General History of the Things of New Spain; Book 2 -- The Ceremonies, no. 14, Part III, eds. and transl. Arthur J. O. Anderson and Charles E. Dibble (Santa Fe and Salt Lake City: School of American Research and the University of Utah, 1951), 57.