The chipotle pepper has a fascinating history dating back to the fifteenth century when Christopher Columbus first discovered it. Upon bringing it back to Spain, the chipotle pepper quickly gained popularity in Europe. However, it wasn’t until the founding of a fast-food chain in 1993 that it truly made its mark in America, as evidenced by word frequency graphs. The term “chipotle,” like many others ending in -tl, originates from Nahuatl, specifically from the word chillipoctli, which translates to “smoke pepper” due to the chipotle being a smoked jalapeño. The word was a combination of chilli, the etymon for the synonym of “pepper,” and poctli, meaning “smoke” and pronounced with a voiceless alveolar lateral affricate. It is believed that these nouns stem from Proto-Nahuan and Proto-Uto-Aztecan origins, although there is currently no scholarship reconstructing them.
