chocolate

Meanings

Noun

• A food made from ground roasted cocoa beans.
• A drink made by dissolving this food in boiling milk or water.
• A single, small piece of confectionery made from chocolate.
• A dark, reddish-brown colour/color, like that of chocolate (also called chocolate brown).
• A black person; blackness.

Adjective

• Made of or containing chocolate.
• Having a dark reddish-brown colour/color.
• Black .

Verb

• To add chocolate to; to cover (food) in chocolate.
• To treat blood agar by heating in order to lyse the red blood cells in the medium.

Origin

• Via Spanish chocolate from a Nahuatl word, widely given as chocolātl (with the second element being a reflex of Classical Nahuatl ātl), although such a word does not appear in Nahuatl until the mid-18th century according to Karttunen. Dakin and Wichmann propose chicolātl as the original form (saying it survives in several modern Nahuatl dialects) and say the chicol- element refers to a special wooden stick used to prepare chocolate. Another theory is that the prefix came from Yucatec Maya chocol.