tenamaste

Spanish tenamaste.

tenamaste (plural tenamastes)

1. Any of the three stones traditionally used to elevate a comal above a fire in Mesoamerican cultures.
   • 1987, Papers of the New World Archaeological Foundation, page 174:

     Tenamaste stones were used as pot rests or firedogs in a cooking fire.

   • 2005, Pablo Valderrama Rouy, “The Totonac”, in Native Peoples of the Gulf Coast of Mexico, page 199:

     Also, at the foot of the tenamastes people bury coins, chiles, grains of corn, and a handful of beans to assure that the domestic food supply will never run out. [...] Contemporary Totonac usually construct a wooden box with legs that is filled with dirt on which the tenamastes are placed. The most sacred place in the main room is the home altar [...]

   • For more quotations using this term, see Citations:tenamaste.

• Mantatees, emanatest, stamenate

• tenamaztle, tenamastle, tinamaste

Borrowed from Classical Nahuatl tenamaztli (“hearthstone, triplet”).

• IPA^(key): /tenaˈmaste/ [t̪e.naˈmas.t̪e]
• Rhymes: -aste
• Syllabification: te‧na‧mas‧te

tenamaste m (plural tenamastes)

1. (Central America, Mexico) a hearthstone, any of the three stones traditionally used to elevate a comal above a fire
2. (in the plural, Mexico) triplets

   Synonym: trillizos

• 2009, Carlos Montemayor et al., Diccionario del náhuatl en el español de México, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, page 123:

• “tenamaste”, in Diccionario de la lengua española, Vigésima tercera edición, Real Academia Española, 2014