chalchihuitl

English

Etymology

Borrowed from Classical Nahuatl chalchihuitl

Noun

chalchihuitl (countable and uncountable, plural chalchihuitls)

1. (mineralogy, South America) turquoise

Part or all of this entry has been imported from the 1913 edition of Webster’s Dictionary, which is now free of copyright and hence in the public domain. The imported definitions may be significantly out of date, and any more recent senses may be completely missing.
(See the entry for “chalchihuitl”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.)

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Classical Nahuatl

Alternative forms

• chalchiuhtli

Etymology

Perhaps literally “heart of the earth”

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /tʃaːltʃiwitɬ/
• IPA^(key): [tʃaːɬ.ˈtʃí.witɬ]

Andrews (2003) and Karttunen (1983) write chālchihuitl; Lockhart (2001) writes chālchihuitl, but says "Some suspicion remains that the first i is long."

Noun

chālchihuitl

1. A precious green stone: greenstone, jade, turquoise.
   • 1524, Bernardino de Sahagún, Coloquios y doctrina cristiana

     ... auh no yehuan quitemaca ... in chalchihuitl, in quetzalli, in teocuitlatl.

     ... and they also give ... jade, plumes, gold.

Derived terms

Derived terms

• chalchiuhcalli
• chalchiuhiximati

• chalchiuhteuh
• Chalchiuhtlicue

References

• Andrews, J. Richard. (2003) Workbook for Introduction to Classical Nahuatl, Revised Edition, University of Oklahoma Press, p. 215.
• Karttunen, Frances. (1983) An Analytical Dictionary of Nahuatl, University of Texas Press, p. 45.
• Lockhart, James. (2001) Nahuatl as Written, Stanford University Press, p. 214.