Jared and I went to the Sonoma County Fair where they had a whole block of stands featuring Mexican food. One of the stands was selling corn on the cob and immediately the sign captured my attention. The bilingual sign read “Roasted Corn on the cob: Elotes Asados.” As a native Spanish-speaker I had never heard the word elote before; for me, corn on the cob translates to mazorca.
When I returned home, I decided to check the word elote in the Diccionario de Americanismos and I learned that the word comes from the Nahuatl, the indigenous language of the peoples of Mesoamerica.
But I also found out that there are more words for corn on the cob and corn in Spanish:
So, here are five words in Spanish for corn: mazorca, elote, choclo, jojoto and marlo.
Check out these other articles about the Spanish Language.