Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. The root, bulb, or another plant part of several chiefly western North American plants, such as certain species of Agave, Chlorogalum, and Yucca, used as a substitute for soap.
- n. A plant so used.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- n. A Mexican name for the roots of various species of plants which have detergent properties and are used as a substitute for soap.
- n. The name of several plants which furnish these roots. In New Mexico and adjacent parts of Mexico the most common species is the lechuguilla, Agave heteracantha. In California the name is given especially to Chlorogalum pomeridianum, a liliaceous plant having large bulbs coated with coarse brown fibers, of which mattresses are made. See
soap-plant .
Wiktionary
- n. Any of various parts of the Agave (or similar) plants, when used as soap
- n. Other Mexican and North American plants used as soap
GNU Webster's 1913
- n. (Bot.), Sp. Amer. & Mex. Any detergent plant, or the part of it used as a detergent, as the roots of Agave Americana, Chlorogalum pomeridianum, etc.
Etymologies
- From Mexican Spanish amole, from Classical Nahuatl ahmōlli. (Wiktionary)
- American Spanish, from Nahuatl amolli. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“Foam from their muzzles drips onto the ground in fat drops, like a lather of amole (soap) When they run, they make a loud noise, as if stones were raining on the earth.”
The Aztecs speak - an Aztec account of the Conquest of Mexico
“All the way around the room, hanging from pegs driven into the wall, was a row of the broad heavy braided lashes of _amole_ weed, called”
“Behind him came twenty or thirty more _penitentes_, the most I ever saw at once, some of them whipping themselves with big broad whips made out of _amole_.”
“Yucca (Yucca sp.) — Both the datil (Y. baccata) and the amole (Y. glauca) grow in the Chaco area.”
“I've got the deer-brush spotted, and we'll pass an amole before we go very far.”
“When you reach the place where your left hand feels empty without a piece of bread in it, just butter up another amole and try it.”
“If Donald were lost now, he could keep alive for days, because he would know what wood would make him a bow and how he could take amole fiber and braid a bow string and where he could make arrows and arrow points so that he could shoot game for food.”
“At the right of her drawing Linda sketched in a fine specimen of monkey flower, deepening the yellow from the hearts of the amole lilies for the almost human little monkey faces.”
“On the left one giant specimen of amole, reared from a base of exquisitely waving leaves, ran up the side of the drawing and broke into an airy and graceful head of gold-hearted white lilies.”
“We take our choice today between finding deer-brush and digging for amole, because the mock oranges aren't ripe enough to be nice and soapy yet.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘amole’.
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Nahuatl
"Spanish náhuatl, from Nahuatl, that which pleases the ear, from nahua-, audible, intelligent, clear."
- etymology from The American Heritage Dictionary
Nahuatl, Zapotec, Aztec, avocado, guacamole, amole, atlatl, axolotl, black sapote, cacao, cacomistle, chayote and 77 more...
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