a reconnoiterer, a merchant disguised as an explorer, someone who helps lay the groundwork for imperial expansion ("los mercaderes y disimulados esploradores") (Sahagún, attestations)
envoy of the ruler Pedro Carrasco Pizana, The Tenochca Empire of Ancient Mexico: The Triple Alliance of Ancient Tenochtitlan, Tetzcoco, and tlacopan (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1999), 218.
a lord's land James Lockhart, The Nahuas after the Conquest: A Social and Cultural History of the Indians of Central Mexico, Sixteenth through Eighteenth Centuries (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1992), 156.
this "tepiltzin," who functioned as a toatoani, ruled Quauhtinchan when it was conquered by the Tlatelolca in 10 Rabbit, led by Quauhtlatoa; the daughter of the ruler of Quauhtinchan, Tepexochillama, was taken prisoner during this conquest and became the wife of Quauhtlatoa; their son, Quauhtomicicuil, became a tlatoani of Tlatelolco; the wife of Tecuhtlecozauhqui was Tezcatomiyauh, and she was from Quauhquechollan; he was said to have governed 224 years (Quauhtinchan, s. XVI) Historia Tolteca-Chichimeca, eds. Paul Kirchhoff, Lina Odena Güemes, y Luis Reyes García (México: CISINAH, INAH-SEP, 1976), 218.
a lord, an important nobleman heading a lordly house or teccalli The Tlaxcalan Actas: A Compendium of the Records of the Cabildo of Tlaxcala (1545-1627), eds. James Lockhart, Frances Berdan, and Arthur J.O. Anderson (Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 1986), 154.
a lord, a knight, or a gentleman (see Molina)
a lord, a member of the high nobility (see Karttunen)
Seen in the twentieth century to mean patrón (see attestations in Spanish).