an ad hoc term invented to describe a catapult; literally, wooden sling for throwing stones (16th c., central Mexico) James Lockhart, Nahuatl as Written: Lessons in Older Written Nahuatl, with Copious Examples and Texts (Stanford: Stanford University Press and UCLA Latin American Studies, 2001), 231.
a wood log (sixteenth century, central Mexico) Berenice Alcántara and Pedro A. Muñoz, "'You Here, Don't Do It This Way': Allegory and Domestic Dwellings in Bernardino de Sahagún's Nahuatl Sermons of the House," Ethnohistory 71:2 (April 2024), see p. 151.
a personal name; e.g. the name of a ruler of Mexico-Tenochtitlan (1521–25) and a major figure at the time of the Spanish invasion and colonization of Mexico; son of Ahuitzotl, also a ruler of Tenochtitlan; this was also a name taken by commoner males (see Cline in attestations in English translation)
a type of wood beetle (see the DFC for a description and an image; the image could be a compound hieroglyph) Digital Florentine Codex/Códice Florentino Digital, edited by Kim N. Richter and Alicia Maria Houtrouw, "Book 11: Earthly Things", fol. 106r, Getty Research Institute, 2023. https://florentinecodex.getty.edu/en/book/11/folio/106r/images/0 Accessed 9 November 2025.
an indigenous ruler of Tlaxcala; he harbored fugitive sons of Quetzalpetlatl of Huexotzinco (central Mexico, early seventeenth century) Codex Chimalpahin: Society and Politics in Mexico Tenochtitlan, Tlatelolco, Culhuacan, and Other Nahuatl Altepetl in Central Mexico; The Nahuatl and Spanish Annals and Accounts Collected and Recorded by don Domingo de San Antón Muñón Chimalpahin Quauhtlehuanitzin, eds. and transl. Arthur J. O. Anderson and Susan Schroeder (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1997), vol. 2, 184–185.
a church, chapel, or temple built from wood (ca. 1582, Mexico City) Luis Reyes García, ¿Como te confundes? ¿Acaso no somos conquistados? Anales de Juan Bautista (Mexico: Centro de Investigaciones y Estudios Superiores en Antropología Social, Biblioteca Lorenzo Boturini Insigne y Nacional Basílica de Guadalupe, 2001), 164–165.
pieces of wood that are put on top of foundational stones; adobe bricks rest upon this wood Sahagún, Bernardino de, Antonio Valeriano, Alonso Vegerano, Martín Jacobita, Pedro de San Buenaventura, Diego de Grado, Bonifacio Maximiliano, Mateo Severino, et al. Historia general de las cosas de Nueva España (Florentine Codex), Ms. Mediceo Palatino 218–20, Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana, Florence, MiBACT, 1577. Available at Digital Florentine Codex/Códice Florentino Digital, edited by Kim N. Richter, Alicia Maria Houtrouw, Kevin Terraciano, Jeanette Peterson, Diana Magaloni, and Lisa Sousa, bk. 11, fol. 119v. Los Angeles: Getty Research Institute, 2023. https://florentinecodex.getty.edu/en/book/11/folio/119v?spTexts=&nhTexts= . Accessed 12 November 2025.
a medicinal plant, called the "fire plant," apparently a rhododendron (Valley of Mexico, 1570–1587) The Mexican Treasury: The Writings of Dr. Francisco Hernández, ed. Simon Varey, transl. Rafael Chabrán, Cynthia L. Chamberlin, and Simon Varey (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2000), 123.
some kind of shrub or tree; it is only mentioned briefly in the Florentine Codex as thick barked and producing a dye Digital Florentine Codex/Códice Florentino Digital, edited by Kim N. Richter and Alicia Maria Houtrouw, "Book 11: Earthly Things", fol. 113v, Sahagún, Bernardino de. Florentine Codex: General History of the Things of New Spain. Transcribed and translated with notes by Arthur J. O. Anderson and Charles E. Dibble. 2nd rev. ed. Santa Fe, NM: School of American Research / University of Utah Press, 1950–82. Getty Research Institute, 2023. https://florentinecodex.getty.edu/en/book/11/folio/113v Accessed 11 November 2025.