pilpil

Reduplication of pil (“red”).

pilpil

1. blood

From pilli (“child”) +‎ -pīl. Molina attests the plural form pīpilpipīl, from which the singular form can be deduced. Sahagún attests the singular form with the meaning (“five- or six-year-old child”). The plural form, as described by Carochi, is notable for its mirrored relative vowel length, resulting from the reduplication of both the stem pilli (“child”) (plural pīpiltin) and the diminutive postposition -pil, which undergoes short-vowel reduplication when pluralized (-pipīl).

• IPA^(key): /ˈpiɬpiːɬ/

pilpīl (animate, plural pīpilpipīl)

1. diminutive of pilli; a child or youth.
   • 1571, Alonso de Molina, Vocabulario en lengua castellana y mexicana y mexicana y castellana, f. 82r. col. 2:

     Pipilpipil.muchachuelos.

     Pipilpipil.youngsters [boys or young men].

• piltōntli
• piltzintli

• Frances Karttunen (1992) An Analytical Dictionary of Nahuatl, University of Oklahoma Press, page 43
• Horacio Carochi (2001) James Lockhart, transl., Grammar of the Mexican Language, with an Explanation of its Adverbs (1645), Stanford: Stanford University Press, page 43
• Alonso de Molina (2008) Vocabulario en lengua castellana y mexicana y mexicana y castellana (1571), Mexico: Editorial Porrúa, page 82

• IPA^(key): /pilˈpil/ [pilˈpil]
• Rhymes: -il
• Syllabification: pil‧pil

(This etymology is missing or incomplete. Please add to it, or discuss it at the Etymology scriptorium.)

pilpil m (plural pilpiles)

1. (Chile) Boquila trifoliolata (a species of flowering plants in the family Lardizabalaceae)

pilpil m (uncountable)

1. alternative form of pil-pil

• “pilpil”, in Diccionario de la lengua española [Dictionary of the Spanish Language] (in Spanish), online version 23.8, Royal Spanish Academy [Spanish: Real Academia Española], 10 December 2024