michihuauhtli.

Headword: 
michihuauhtli.
Principal English Translation: 

amaranth seeds that are hard and yellow and look like fish eggs (see attestation); a certain type of amaranth (see Molina)

Orthographic Variants: 
michiuauhtli
Alonso de Molina: 

michiuauhtli. cierto genero de bledos.
Alonso de Molina, Vocabulario en lengua castellana y mexicana y mexicana y castellana, 1571, part 2, Nahuatl to Spanish, f. 56r. col. 1. Thanks to Joe Campbell for providing the transcription.

Attestations from sources in English: 

michioauhtli: “ioan itoca chicalotl, coztic, ololtic, ololiuhquj, vel teololtic, tlaquaoac, xaltic, tepitztic, tzoalolonj, njtzoaloa,” [ihuan itoca chicalotl, coztic, ololtic, ololiuhqui, huel teololtic, tlacuahuac, xaltic, tepitztic, tzohualoloni, nitzohualoa (SW)], which Anderson and Dibble translate as: “Also its name is chicalotl. It is yellow, round, rounded, quite like a round stone, hard. It is sand-like, hard. It is that from which amaranth seed dough is made.”
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. 252r. Los Angeles: Getty Research Institute, 2023. https://florentinecodex.getty.edu/en/book/11/folio/252r?spTexts=&nhTexts= . Accessed 6 February 2026.

See also: