trapiche

thumb|upright=1.3|Trapiche in the island of Hispaniola|The Hispaniola in an engraving of the 17th century A trapiche is a mill made of wooden rollers used to extract juice from fruit, originally olives, and since the Middle Ages, sugar cane as well. By extension the word is also sometimes applied to the location of the mill, whether the workshop or the entire plantation.

==Etymology== The word has its origin in the Latin trapetum that means oil mill. From the Sicilian language trappitu the term, crossing the Mozarab from Valencia, with its typical change of termination to «-ig» via the Catalan language (trapig -Gandía, 1536-, trapitz de canyamel -Mallorca, 1466-) has arrived to the other languages of the Iberian peninsula as trapiche. In the documents of the Duke of Gandía from the beginning of the fifteen century, one can see the term «trapig de canyamel», as a synecdoche to indicate the whole village engenho. According to Herrera: "..es de notar que antiguamente no auuia azucar,ſino en Valencia" ("note that in the old days there was no sugar except in Valencia").