Aztec

How to spell aztec

5 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce aztec

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does aztec mean?

1. nounA member of the Nahuatl-speaking people who founded a powerful empire in central Mexico before the Spanish conquest.

Aztec in a sentence

• The museum displayed gold ornaments crafted by a single aztec goldsmith.

• Her thesis examined how each aztec city paid tribute to the capital.

Where does aztec come from?

Language of origin: Other

This word reaches English from Nahuatl, the language of the people it describes, by way of Spanish. The Nahuatl form was Aztecatl, meaning roughly 'a person from Aztlan', Aztlan being the semi-legendary northern homeland from which the people said they had migrated south into the Valley of Mexico. Spanish colonists adopted the term as Azteca during the 1500s, and it passed into English in the early 1800s, popularised in part by the historian William H. Prescott. Strictly speaking the people more often called themselves the Mexica, and 'Aztec' became the broad scholarly label only later. The spelling keeps the unusual 'zt' cluster of the original Nahuatl word, which is the detail that makes it look foreign and easy to second-guess.

How the word is built

• aztec (from Nahuatl Aztecatl: person from Aztlan, the legendary ancestral homeland)