Zapotec

American  

[zap-uh-tek, zah-puh-, sah-paw-tek] / ˈzæp əˌtɛk, ˈzɑ pə-, ˌsɑ pɔˈtɛk /

noun

plural

Zapotecs,

plural

Zapotec

1. a member of an American Indian people living in the Mexican state of Oaxaca.

2. the Oto-Manguean language of the Zapotecs, consisting of a number of highly divergent dialects.

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adjective

1. Archaeology. of or relating to a Mesoamerican Indian civilization of the Oaxaca region of Mexico c600 b.c. to a.d. 1000, characterized by a bar-and-dot system of enumeration, a calendar of Mayan derivation, ball courts, and underground frescoed tombs.

Zapotec British  

/ ˈzɑːpəˌtɛk /

noun

1. Also: Zapotecan.  any member of a large tribe of central American Indians inhabiting S Mexico, esp the Mexican state of Oaxaca

2. the group of languages spoken by this people

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adjective

1. Also: Zapotecan.  of or relating to this people or their language

Etymology

Origin of Zapotec

< Mexican Spanish zapoteco < Nahuatl tzapotēcah, plural of tzapotēcatl person from Tzapotlān ( tzapo ( tl ) sapodilla + -tēcatl suffix of personal nouns, -tlān locative suffix)

Example Sentences

The Mixteco Indigena Community Organizing Project fosters “community with 60 to 100 Indigenous youth from the Mixteco, Zapotec, and many other Diasporic communities throughout the Central Coast.”

From The Wall Street Journal • Jan. 4, 2026

The flowers were painstakingly hand-sewn onto the fabric by Claudia Vazquez, a 43-year-old Zapotec Indigenous woman who told AFP she had nearly given up on embroidery, her first love.

From Barron's • Jan. 2, 2026

The hamlet of Yojuela is home to some 500 people — all of Indigenous Zapotec origins — who reside deep in the Sierra Madre Oriental, in Mexico’s southern Oaxaca state.

From Los Angeles Times • Aug. 22, 2025

The parents of a 23-year-old undocumented migrant, a member of Mexico's indigenous Zapotec community, told the Washington Post their son, who they said has no criminal history, was detained outside a clothing store.

From BBC • Jun. 11, 2025

According to Marcus, the Michigan anthropologist, the glyphs correspond to i-Earthquake, the Zapotec name for the seventeenth day of the 260-day sacred calendar.

From "1491" by Charles C. Mann