Zapotec
Americannoun
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a member of an American Indian people living in the Mexican state of Oaxaca.
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the Oto-Manguean language of the Zapotecs, consisting of a number of highly divergent dialects.
adjective
noun
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Also: Zapotecan. any member of a large tribe of central American Indians inhabiting S Mexico, esp the Mexican state of Oaxaca
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the group of languages spoken by this people
adjective
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
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
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
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
In 4-Wind’s first exercise of statecraft, he abandoned the Zapotec allies who had helped him achieve the throne, aligned Tilantongo with the Toltec empire to the north, and attacked the Zapotec.
From "1491" by Charles C. Mann
The site was established in roughly 200 A.D. as a fortified village, and then as a burial ground by the Zapotecs, the so-called Cloud People, who settled in the region around 1,500 B.C.
From New York Times ● Dec. 23, 2023
The Olmec influenced Mesoamerican cultures that followed, including the Zapotecs of Oaxaca, the Teotihuacanos of the Valley of Mexico, and the Maya of southern Mexico and Guatemala.
From Textbooks ● Apr. 19, 2023
The Zapotecs were contemporaries of the ancient Maya, with both cultures known for their elaborate writing, among the world's first-ever literary traditions.
From Reuters ● Jan. 19, 2023
Because it means "I love you" in the language of the Zapotecs, an indigenous population from southern Mexico.
From Salon ● Nov. 17, 2022
This rule was observed by the supreme pontiff of the Zapotecs in Mexico; he profaned his sanctity if he so much as touched the ground with his foot.
From The Golden Bough by Frazer, James George, Sir
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
