Principal English Translation:
a dike (a wall to hold back water); parapet, eaves, or the sides of a rooftop; or, a wall
Alonso de Molina:
Atenamitl. ala de tejado, o antepecho de açotea (azotea).
Alonso de Molina, Vocabulario en lengua mexicana y castellana, 1571, (www.idiez.org.mx), f. 7v.
Lockhart’s Nahuatl as Written:
ahtenām-itl = parapet or projection on a roof or top of wall; eave. Contains tenāmitl. The h in the first element is speculative, suggested in view of some words in which ah has a sense of above.
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), 211.
Attestations from sources in English:
omotecac yancuic atenamitl = the new dikes were built (central New Spain, seventeenth century)
Annals of His Time: Don Domingo de San Antón Muñón Chimalpahin Quauhtlehuanitzin, James Lockhart, Susan Schroeder, and Doris Namala, eds. and transl. (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2006), 84–85.
yhuan mexicatzinco ohtli yn atenamitl mochiuhtoc mohuecapano motlalten motlachcuitlaz = And the Mexicatzinco road that has been made into a dike was raised; soil and sod were thrown on it (central Mexico, 1610)
Annals of His Time: Don Domingo de San Antón Muñón Chimalpahin Quauhtlehuanitzin, James Lockhart, Susan Schroeder, and Doris Namala, eds. and transl. (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2006), 162–3.
Attestations from sources in Spanish:
ipan mill i quinientos i cincuenta y cinco años, Matlactloce Acatl, ycuac apachiohuac: ipantia don Estevan de Gusmán apachiohuac. Ipan tlatoco Seçetzin atenamitl omotecac Sant Lázaro, yhuan motatacato acalotli Tehuiloiocan = En [el año] 11 Acatl, 1555, hubo inundación; la inundación fue en tiempos de don Esteban de Guzmán. Cecetzin ordenó que se construyera el dique de San Lázaro, y que se excavara el canal de Tehuiloyocan (Mexico City, c. 1572)
Ana Rita Valero de García Lascuráin and Rafael Tena, Códice Cozcatzin (México: Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia, Benemérita Universidad Autónoma de Puebla, 1994), 99.