ayoxochitl. | Nahuatl Dictionary

Headword:

ayoxochitl.

Principal English Translation:

squash blossom (see Molina and attestations)

Orthographic Variants:

ayuxuchitl, ayojochi

IPAspelling:

ɑyohʃoːtʃitɬ

Alonso de Molina:

ayoxochitl. flor de 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.

ayuxuchitl. flor de calabaza.
Alonso de Molina, Vocabulario en lengua castellana y mexicana y mexicana y castellana, 1571, part 2, Nahuatl to Spanish, f. 4r. col. 1. Thanks to Joe Campbell for providing the transcription.

Frances Karttunen:

AYOHXŌCHI-TL squash blossom / flor de calabaza (M) See AYOH-TLI, XŌCHI-TL. 7
Frances Karttunen, An Analytical Dictionary of Nahuatl (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1992), 16.

Attestations from sources in English:

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

Maria Ayojoçhi is mentioned in parish records of San Bartolomé Capulhuac (Acapulhuac, Capolohuac, etc.) of 1617.
Salt Lake City, Genealogical Library, microfilm 695644, 1612–1651. Harvested from the microfilm by Stephanie Wood.

cenca coztic, iuhqujn aioxochqujlitl = very yellow, like squash blossoms (central Mexico, sixteenth century)
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), 86.

ayoxochquilitl = the center is hairy, fuzzy; when it blooms it is yellow; it is cooked in a pot (these are some of the details of the Nahuatl text in English translation).
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. 135r. Los Angeles: Getty Research Institute, 2023. https://florentinecodex.getty.edu/en/book/11/folio/135r?spTexts=&nhTexts= . Accessed 19 November 2025.

themes:

Flowers

Food, Eating, Cooking

Plants, Trees, Flora