cocoliztli means an epidemic illness that spread through Mexico in the 16th century. Lexicurio rates it Sui generis — a strength score of 87 out of 100.
Why “cocoliztli” is a great word
COCOLIZTLI — [Noun] A severe epidemic disease, often identified as a hemorrhagic fever, that devastated the indigenous populations of Mexico in the 16th century. From Classical Nahuatl cocoliztli, meaning "disease, illness, pestilence." Unlike "plague," which specifies a known bacterial agent, or the clinical generality of "epidemic," cocoliztli is a linguistic artifact of demographic cataclysm. It is the silence in a conquered city where too many hearths have gone cold, the fever that stains the sleeping mat, and the emptiness of a field untended because the hands that knew it are dust; a name that contains not a diagnosis, but the memory of a world breaking under a weight it had no name for.
Etymology
From Classical Nahuatl cocoliztli (“disease, illness”).
noun
- An epidemic illness that spread through Mexico in the 16th century.