cacao

Where does the word "cacao" come from? It comes from Nahuatl cacahuatl, passing through Spanish before entering English (1600s).

Cacao’s story begins in Nahuatl: cacahuatl meant “cacao bean.” The name for the beans used to make a bitter drink. By 1500s, the word had taken hold in Spanish as cacao. The Aztecs used cacao beans as money and drank them in a bitter frothy drink. It reached English by 1600s as cacao. Linnaeus named the tree 'Theobroma cacao', 'food of the gods', in 1753. Today, cacao means the dried, fermented seed of the cacao tree, used to make chocolate.

1. Stage 1 · Nahuatl · pre-1500s cacahuatl "cacao bean", the name for the beans used to make a bitter drink.
2. Stage 2 · Spanish · 1500s cacao "cacao bean", the Aztecs used cacao beans as money and drank them in a bitter frothy drink.
3. Stage 3 · English · 1600s cacao "the bean used to make chocolate", Linnaeus named the tree 'Theobroma cacao', 'food of the gods', in 1753.