Portuguese

Proper noun

México m

1. Mexico (a country of North America)
2. Mexico City (the capital city of Mexico)

Quotations

For usage examples of this term, see Citations:México.

Synonyms

• (Mexico City): Cidade do México

Spanish

Alternative forms

• Méjico (rare)

Etymology

From Classical Nahuatl Mēxihco, originally a toponym for the Valley of Mexico. Aside from the element -co, the Nahuatl locative suffix, the etymology of this place-name remains uncertain. It has been suggested to be derived from Mēxihtli, a name belonging to the Aztecs' patron god Huitzilopochtli, in which case the associated locative name could be interpreted as ("place of Huitzilopochtli" or “place where Huitzilopochtli lives”). Another hypothesis suggests the name to be a portmanteau of the words mētztli ‎(“moon”) + xīctli ‎(“navel”), hence the hypothetical original form *Mētzxīcco, meaning “place at the navel/center of the moon”, perhaps referring to the city of Tenochtitlan's position in Lake Texcoco, which was the central lake of a system of interconnected lakes whose shape was likened to that of a rabbit by the Aztecs; an animal associated to the moon. (If that is the case, then the sound of tz /t͡s/ in mētz- has been absorbed into the initial x /ʃ/ of -xīc-, while the geminate cc /kː/ in -xīcco has been transformed into the consonant cluster hc /ʔk/.) A third hypothesis suggests a derivation incorporating metl ‎(“maguey”) (stem me-), perhaps from Mēctli, a maguey goddess.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈme.xi.ko/

Proper noun

México m

1. Mexico
2. (Mexico) Mexico City

Synonyms

• (Mexico City): Ciudad de México

Derived terms

• mexicano
• mexiquense

Related terms

• mexicanismo