Etymology
In Mexico, corn smut is known as huitlacoche, sometimes spelled cuitlacoche). This word entered Spanish in Mexico from classical Nahuatl, though the Nahuatl words from which huitlacoche is derived is debated. In modern Nahuatl, the word for huitlacoche is cuitlacochin, and some sources deem cuitlacochi to be the classical form.
Some sources give the etymology as coming from the Nahuatl words cuitla ("excrement" or "rear-end") and cochtli ("sleeping", from cochi="to sleep"), thus giving a combined meaning of "sleeping/hibernating excrement".
A second group of sources deem the word to mean "raven's excrement". These sources appear to be combining the word cuitlacoche for "thrasher" with cuitla, meaning "excrement". However, the avian meaning of cuitlacoche derives from the Nahuatl word "song" cuīcatl, itself from the verb "to sing" cuīca . This root then clashes with this reconstruction's second claim that the segment cuitla- comes from cuitla ("excrement").
One source derives the meaning as "corn excrement", using cuītla again and "maize" tlaōlli . This requires the linguistically unlikely evolution of tlaole "maize" into tlacoche.
Read more about this topic: Corn Smut
Famous quotes containing the word etymology:
“The universal principle of etymology in all languages: words are carried over from bodies and from the properties of bodies to express the things of the mind and spirit. The order of ideas must follow the order of things.”
—Giambattista Vico (1688–1744)
“Semantically, taste is rich and confusing, its etymology as odd and interesting as that of “style.” But while style—deriving from the stylus or pointed rod which Roman scribes used to make marks on wax tablets—suggests activity, taste is more passive.... Etymologically, the word we use derives from the Old French, meaning touch or feel, a sense that is preserved in the current Italian word for a keyboard, tastiera.”
—Stephen Bayley, British historian, art critic. “Taste: The Story of an Idea,” Taste: The Secret Meaning of Things, Random House (1991)