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centetl.

Headword: 
centetl.
Principal English Translation: 

one, a single one (see Karttunen); a, an (see Molina)

Orthographic Variants: 
sente, cente, centetli, cetetli, setele
IPAspelling: 
sentetɬ
Alonso de Molina: 

centetl. vno o vna.
Alonso de Molina, Vocabulario en lengua castellana y mexicana y mexicana y castellana, 1571, part 2, Nahuatl to Spanish, f. 17v. col. 2. Thanks to Joe Campbell for providing the transcription.

Frances Karttunen: 

CENTE-TL one, a single one / uno o una (M), unico, solo (T) T has a variant CENTI-TL. Numbers suffixed with TE-TL which literally means ‘stone,’ are used for enumerating objects more or less arbitrarily assigned for the purpose of counting to the class of rock-like or lump-like things. Among other things, the class includes eggs, tamales, fruits, and beans. See CEM, TE-TL.
Frances Karttunen, An Analytical Dictionary of Nahuatl (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1992), 31.

Attestations from sources in English: 

iSenteConetzin yn tto. xpo = her only child our lord Christ (Santa María de la Asunción, Toluca Valley, 1759)
Caterina Pizzigoni, ed., Testaments of Toluca (Stanford: Stanford University Press and UCLA Latin American Center Publications, 2007), 173.

yz ca yn imil chicuazematla [sic] yz ca yn itetlacualtil çe çotli canavac atle y[...]laquil ça ya yo yn itequivh y nica acticate macuilti y cetetli calli y cate = Here is his field, six matl. Here is his provisions tribute, one quarter-length of a narrow cloak. [He gives] no tribute in kind, that is all his tribute. There are five people included in one house here. (Cuernavaca region, ca. 1540s)
The Book of Tributes: Early Sixteenth-Century Nahuatl Censuses from Morelos, ed. and transl. S. L. Cline, (Los Angeles: UCLA Latin American Center Publications, 1993), 112–113.

setele = a variant seen in the Valley of Toluca
sentel numisan mitos = a mass is to be said for me (San Luis, 1699)
Setel Capoti = a cape (Santa Ana, 1728)
Caterina Pizzigoni, ed., Testaments of Toluca (Stanford: Stanford University Press and UCLA Latin American Center Publications, 2007), 43, 56, 118.

Attestations from sources in Spanish: 

Ce tonaltica ocalactehuac cente tlacatl cuacuahue = Cierto día entró (a la casa) un hombre toro (s. XX, Milpa Alta)
Los cuentos en náhuatl de Doña Luz Jiménez, recop. Fernando Horcasitas y Sarah O. de Ford (México: UNAM, 1979), 36–37.

themes: 
Numbers, Math