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amacuahuitl.

Headword: 
amacuahuitl.
Principal English Translation: 

fig tree (the inner bark was used in paper making) (see Karttunen)

Orthographic Variants: 
āmacuahuitl, amaquahuitl, amaguahuitl, amaquavitl
IPAspelling: 
ɑːmɑkwɑwitɬ
Frances Karttunen: 

ĀMACUAHU(I)-TL fig tree (the inner bark /K009/ of which is used in papermaking) / amate (árbol)(T)[(1)Tp.170]. See ĀMA-TL, CUAHU(I)-TL.
Frances Karttunen, An Analytical Dictionary of Nahuatl (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1992), 10.

Attestations from sources in English: 

Amaquahuitl = "paper tree," a ficus or fig-tree; described by Francisco Hernández in 1570 as a "'large tree with leaves like a fig and with white flowers and fruits arranged in clusters. It thrives in the Tepoztlan mountains where...paper is made from it.'"
Journal of the New York Botanical Garden, vol. 44 (1943), 2, 6.

The amacuahuitl is described in the Florentine Codex, Book 11, referring to how smooth the bark is and how it is pounded and used for making paper. (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. 115v. Los Angeles: Getty Research Institute, 2023. https://florentinecodex.getty.edu/en/book/11/folio/115v . Accessed 12 November 2025.

Attestations from sources in Spanish: 

amaquahuitl = daba la corteza principalmente empleada para el papel
Rafael Aguilar y Santillán, Memoires des Société Scientifique "Antonio Alzate", v. 29–30 (1909), 86.

themes: 
Paper
Plants, Trees, Flora