ayotli. | Nahuatl Dictionary

Headword:

ayotli.

Principal English Translation:

squash or calabash (see Molina); sometimes also translated as pumpkin, winter squash, or gourd; sounds something like ayotl (turtle) and yaotl (combatant or enemy) (SW)

Orthographic Variants:

aotli, aiotli

IPAspelling:

ɑyohtɬi

Alonso de Molina:

ayotli. calabaza.
Alonso de Molina, Vocabulario en lengua castellana y mexicana y mexicana y castellana, 1571, part 2, Nahuatl to Spanish, f. 3v. col. 2. Thanks to Joe Campbell for providing the transcription.

Frances Karttunen:

AYOH-TLI pl: -MEH squash , calabash / calabaza (M)
Frances Karttunen, An Analytical Dictionary of Nahuatl (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1992), 16.

Attestations from sources in English:

Auh onicelihui elotl, ayotli, yhuan tepitzin onicychtec ychcatl = And I desired corn on the cobb and gourds and I stole a little bit of wool.
Bartolomé de Alva, A Guide to Confession Large and Small in the Mexican Language, 1634, eds. Barry D. Sell and John Frederick Schwaller, with Lu Ann Homza (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1999), 135.

oncan yc ye mochinantia oncan quitocaque yn tlaolli y huauhtli. yn etl. yn ayotli. yn chilchotl. yn xitomatl. = There they made reed fences for themselves; there they planted corn, amaranth, beans, squash, green chilis and tomatoes. (central Mexico, early seventeenth century)
Codex Chimalpahin: Society and Politics in Mexico Tenochtitlan, Tlatelolco, Culhuacan, and Other Nahuatl Altepetl in Central Mexico; The Nahuatl and Spanish Annals and Accounts Collected and Recorded by don Domingo de San Antón Muñón Chimalpahin Quauhtlehuanitzin, eds. and transl. Arthur J. O. Anderson and Susan Schroeder (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1997), vol. 1, 84–85.

Attestations from sources in Spanish:

Auh onicelihui elotl, ayotli, yhuan tepitzin onicychtec ychcatl = Y se me antojó hurtar vnos elotes, y calabaças, y hurté vna poca de lana
Bartolomé de Alva, A Guide to Confession Large and Small in the Mexican Language, 1634, eds. Barry D. Sell and John Frederick Schwaller, with Lu Ann Homza (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1999), 134–135.

ayohuach cualoni | chipahuacyztatl cualloni | i peso = Se gastó un peso en semillas de calabaza y sal blanca (Hidalgo, late sixteenth century)
Christina Bosque Cantón, La pintura de Tecpatepec: Un códice de quejas contra un corregidor (Zinacantepec: El Colegio Mexiquense, 2019), 75.

Pensando en el origen del nombre ayotli, hay que tomar en cuenta "la semejanza que tiene el fruto de la calabaza con el carapacho de la tortuga."
Museo Nacional de México, Anales, 7 (1903), 353.

themes:

Food, Eating, Cooking

Plants, Trees, Flora