chocolate

Pronunciation

• IPA: UK /ˈtʃɒk.lət/, /ˈtʃɒk.əl.ət/, US /ˈtʃɑːk.lət/, /ˈtʃɔːk.lət/^[1]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Spanish chocolate,^[2][3][4] from Classical Nahuatl chocolatl (“food made from cacao seeds”),^[3][4][5] partly through French chocolat.^[4][5] Europeans seem to have confused it with cacahuatl, a drink made from cacao,^[4][5][3] and its first element might be related to xocalia “to make sour”,^[2] or, in MWU, xococ “sour, bitter”, with atl “water”.^[6][2] The European forms may also have been influenced by Mayan chocol “hot”.^[2] It is related to cacao and cocoa.^[7]

Earliest recorded meaning

A drink made from the seeds of the cacao tree: 1604 in the OED and Barnhart, in a translation of a Dutch history of the West Indies.^[8][3][6] The Aztecs made it with cold water and the Spanish with hot; it reached Spain by 1520 and spread to the rest of Europe.^[2]

Semantic evolution

It was a fashionable drink in the 17th and 18th centuries,^[7] and Pepys wrote in 1664 of going to a coffee-house “to drink jocolatte”.^[7][2] A paste or cake of ground roasted seeds is from 1640 in Barnhart, 1659 in the OED,^[3][8] and a single chocolate sweet from the 1880s.^[2] The colour, a dark reddish brown, is from 1776.^[2][8] Chocolate milk is by 1845, and chocolate chip from 1940.^[2]

Timeline

• 1604 – a drink.^[8][3]
• 1640 – a paste or cake.^[3]
• 1664 – Pepys drinks “jocolatte”.^[7]
• 1723 – adjective, made of chocolate.^[2]
• 1776 – the colour.^[2][8]
• 1880s – a chocolate sweet.^[2]

Modern meaning

Noun

1. A sweet brown food made from roasted and ground cacao seeds.
2. A small sweet made of or covered with chocolate.
3. A hot drink made with chocolate and milk or water.
4. A dark brown colour.

Adjective

1. Made of or flavoured with chocolate.
2. Dark brown.

Word family

• chocolaty
• chocoholic
• chocolate-box
• chocolate milk
• chocolate soldier
• chocolate tree
• dark chocolate
• milk chocolate

Related words

• chocolatier
• cacao
• cocoa

References

1. ^ Jones, Daniel (2011), Cambridge English Pronouncing Dictionary, 18th ed., ed. Peter Roach, Jane Setter and John Esling, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
3. ^ a b c d e f g Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
4. ^ a b c d Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
5. ^ a b c Pearsall, Judy, ed. (1998), The New Oxford Dictionary of English, Oxford: Clarendon Press
6. ^ a b Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
7. ^ a b c d Cresswell, Julia (2021), Oxford Dictionary of Word Origins, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
8. ^ a b c d e Simpson, J. A.; Weiner, E. S. C., eds. (1989), The Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press