Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun A member of a people of central Mexico whose civilization was at its height at the time of the Spanish conquest in the early 16th century.
  • noun The Nahuatl language of the Aztecs.
  • adjective Of or relating to the Aztecs or their language, culture, or empire.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun A member of one of the leading aboriginal tribes of Mexico, which was dominant on the central table-land at the time of the Spanish invasion under Cortes in 1519.
  • Of or pertaining to the Aztecs.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • adjective Of or relating to one of the early races in Mexico that inhabited the great plateau of that country at the time of the Spanish conquest in 1519.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun A Mexica.
  • noun A Nahua.
  • proper noun The Nahuatl language.
  • adjective Of or pertaining to the Mexica people.
  • adjective Of or pertaining to the Nahuas.
  • adjective Of or pertaining to the Nahuatl language.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun a member of the Nahuatl people who established an empire in Mexico that was overthrown by Cortes in 1519

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Spanish Azteca, from Nahuatl Aztecatl, one who comes from the place of the cranes : áztatl, crane + -técatl, suff.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Spanish azteca, from Nahuatl aztēcah, plural of aztēcatl ("inhabitant of Aztlan").

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Examples

  • The name Aztec is said to be derived from Aztlan (i.e. aztatl = "heron" and tlantli = lit. "tooth" but signifying "place of"), the Place of the Heron.

    Aztec, Mexica, or Alien? 2008

  • The name Aztec is said to be derived from Aztlan (i.e. aztatl = "heron" and tlantli = lit. "tooth" but signifying "place of"), the Place of the Heron.

    Aztec, Mexica, or Alien? 2008

  • The term Aztec is from Aztlan, an island on a lake far away from the lake in which Tenochtitlan was located.

    Mexico's Name 1999

  • The term Aztec is from Aztlan, an island on a lake far away from the lake in which Tenochtitlan was located.

    Mexico's Name 1999

  • As I walk with Victor, I reach back into my memory that afternoon and think about the little things you hear growing up in a Mexican American border community, where Spanish-language newscasts are played in living rooms and English-language newspapers gather on kitchen tables: soccer scores, the Mexican president announcing this or defending that, that red-green-and-white sash across his breast, gossip from the Tijuana society pages, the word Aztec echoing up and down the vocabulary.

    Down and Delirious in Mexico City Daniel Hernandez 2011

  • As I walk with Victor, I reach back into my memory that afternoon and think about the little things you hear growing up in a Mexican American border community, where Spanish-language newscasts are played in living rooms and English-language newspapers gather on kitchen tables: soccer scores, the Mexican president announcing this or defending that, that red-green-and-white sash across his breast, gossip from the Tijuana society pages, the word Aztec echoing up and down the vocabulary.

    Down and Delirious in Mexico City Daniel Hernandez 2011

  • As I walk with Victor, I reach back into my memory that afternoon and think about the little things you hear growing up in a Mexican American border community, where Spanish-language newscasts are played in living rooms and English-language newspapers gather on kitchen tables: soccer scores, the Mexican president announcing this or defending that, that red-green-and-white sash across his breast, gossip from the Tijuana society pages, the word Aztec echoing up and down the vocabulary.

    Down and Delirious in Mexico City Daniel Hernandez 2011

  • ( "Tonight I'm going to put it to the supreme test!" says an inventor in "Aztec Mummy," and a silhouetted Joel replies, "The Cosmo sex quiz?")

    'Cinematic Titanic' re-creates 'Mystery Science Theater 3000' in Washington Monica Hesse 2010

  • Typically, She is the daughter, the harvest maiden, the corn virgin, although in Aztec Mexico and Egypt, the grain spirit was Her son.

    Donna Henes: Harvesting Mother Earth's Gifts of Life Donna Henes 2010

  • Typically, She is the daughter, the harvest maiden, the corn virgin, although in Aztec Mexico and Egypt, the grain spirit was Her son.

    Donna Henes: Harvesting Mother Earth's Gifts of Life Donna Henes 2010

  • The culture that the two groups created between them would later be called ‘Aztec’ (though that was not a word they themselves ever used).

    For the wanderers who became the Aztecs history was a chorus of voices – Camilla Townsend | Aeon Essays Camilla Townsend 2023

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