How Chocolate Got Its Name

The word "chocolate" entered the English language from Spanish.^[3] How the word came into Spanish is less certain, and there are multiple competing explanations. Perhaps the most cited explanation is that "chocolate" comes from Nahuatl, the language of the Aztecs, from the word "chocolātl", which many sources derived from the Nahuatl word "xocolātl"  made up from the words "xococ" meaning sour or bitter, and "ātl" meaning water or drink.^[3]  

                                               However, as William Bright noted^[4] the word "chocolatl" does not occur in central Mexican colonial sources, making this an unlikely derivation. Santamaria^[5] gives a derivation from the Yucatec Maya word "chokol" meaning hot, and the Nahuatl "atl" meaning water. More recently, Dakin and Wichmann derive it from another Nahuatl term, "chicolatl" from eastern Nahuatl, meaning "beaten drink".^[6] They derive this term from the word for the frothing stick, "chicoli".