tzapotl.

Headword: 
tzapotl.
Principal English Translation: 

sapota, zapote, a type of fruit
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), 240.

IPAspelling: 
tsɑpotɬ
Alonso de Molina: 

tzapotl. cierta fruta conocida.
Alonso de Molina, Vocabulario en lengua castellana y mexicana y mexicana y castellana, 1571, part 2, Nahuatl to Spanish, f. 151v. col. 1. Thanks to Joe Campbell for providing the transcription.

Frances Karttunen: 

TZAPO-TL pl: -MEH sapota, a type of fruit / cierta fruta conocida (M), zapote (X)
Frances Karttunen, An Analytical Dictionary of Nahuatl (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1992), 311.

Attestations from sources in English: 

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

ynic nauhpa Oquitec tzapotl ce caballo = The fourth time he cut zapote 1 horse (load) (San Bartolomé Atenco, 1617)
Beyond the Codices, eds. Arthur J.O. Anderson, Frances Berdan, and James Lockhart (Los Angeles: UCLA Latin American Center, 1976), Doc. 3, 62–63.

The Florentine Codex discusses a variety of tzapotl trees. The fruit of the cochiztzapotl makes one sleepy. The tlacazoltzapotl has especially large fruit. The atzapotl fruit has more water, and the seed has medicinal value. The DFC includes several images of the tzapotl tree laden with fruit. On folio 121v the list continues, including the xicotzapotl, which grows in the Totonac country and has sweet fruit. Another is the totolcuitlatzapotl, also found in the Totonac country. It has black fruit, resembling bird excrement. Then there is the tezontzapotl (also called the etzapotl, the eeyotzapotl, and the cuauhtzapotl), whose fruit looks like volcanic rock, brown on the outside, white on the inside, and with a black center. (summary, SW)
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. 121r. Los Angeles: Getty Research Institute, 2023. https://florentinecodex.getty.edu/en/book/11/folio/121r?spTexts=&nhTexts= . Accessed 13 November 2025.