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te·o·sin·te

(tā′ə-sĭntē, tē′-, tĕ′ō-sēntĕ)

Any of several chiefly annual grasses of the genus Zea of Mexico and Central America that are similar to corn but have multiple ears with small numbers of hard seeds. Corn is thought to have been domesticated from a type of teosinte.

[Ultimately (via a local Mexican or Central American Spanish term such as teosintle, cycad bearing coblike cones with seeds used for food) from Nahuatl teōcintli, a kind of cycad, literally “corn of the gods” : teōtl, teō-, god (of unknown origin) + cintli, cin-, dried ear of corn (akin to Tarahumara suunú and Tohono O'odham hunni, corn; perhaps further akin to Western Shoshone sunu, a species of saltbush (Atriplex argentea) grown for its edible seeds, and Hopi soŋowï, a tall grass (Calamovilfa gigantea) of the western United States used by the Hopi to decorate prayer sticks and kachinas). For the semantic development from Nahuatl to English, it is notable that both teosinte and nitrogen-fixing cycads are sometimes cultivated as companion plants for corn in traditional Mesoamerican agriculture, and the cycad is associated with the god who gives corn to humans in some Mesoamerican myths.]

Indo-European & Semitic Roots Appendices

Thousands of entries in the dictionary include etymologies that trace their origins back to reconstructed proto-languages. You can obtain more information about these forms in our online appendices:

Indo-European Roots

Semitic Roots

The Indo-European appendix covers nearly half of the Indo-European roots that have left their mark on English words. A more complete treatment of Indo-European roots and the English words derived from them is available in our Dictionary of Indo-European Roots.

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