cua.

Headword: 
cua.
Principal English Translation: 

to eat; to bite (see Molina and Carochi/Lockhart); can also be seen in association with living off the land (eating and drinking from the land) in the Historia Tolteca-Chichimeca; and, the verb can be used to speak of an eclipse (see attestations)

Orthographic Variants: 
qua
Alonso de Molina: 

qua. nitla. (pret. onitlaqua.) comer algo.
Alonso de Molina, Vocabulario en lengua castellana y mexicana y mexicana y castellana, 1571, part 2, Nahuatl to Spanish, f. 84r. col. 1. Thanks to Joe Campbell for providing the transcription.

qua. nite. (pret. onitequa.) morder, o comer a otro.
Alonso de Molina, Vocabulario en lengua castellana y mexicana y mexicana y castellana, 1571, part 2, Nahuatl to Spanish, f. 84r. col. 1. Thanks to Joe Campbell for providing the transcription.

Frances Karttunen: 

CUĀ vt; pret: CUAH to eat something, someone / comer algo (M), morder o comer a otro (M) T has a short final vowel in derived forms where other sources have a long one. But across sources CUĀ appears in some derived forms with a short vowel where a long one is to be expected. CUĀLIĀ applic. CUĀ CUALTIĀ caus. CUĀ
Frances Karttunen, An Analytical Dictionary of Nahuatl (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1992), 56.

Horacio Carochi / English: 

qua = to eat
Horacio Carochi, S.J., Grammar of the Mexican language with an explanation of its adverbs (1645), translated and edited with commentary by James Lockhart, UCLA Latin American Studies Volume 89 (Stanford: Stanford University Press, UCLA Latin American Center Publications, 2001), 510.

Lockhart’s Nahuatl as Written: 

nic. Class 4: ōnicquah.
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), 230.

Attestations from sources in English: 

nepanotl quimoqualtizque = they will mutually feed themselves
Fray Alonso de Molina, Nahua Confraternities in Early Colonial Mexico: The 1552 Nahuatl Ordinances of fray Alonso de Molina, OFM, ed. and trans., Barry D. Sell (Berkeley: Academy of American Franciscan History, 2002), 94–95.

In older Nahuatl, cua will often be seen as tlaqua or tlacua, but the core element of that form also points to eating. In the passive form, ocualoc or cualoc, the intention is refer to the eclipse of the sun (literally, it "was eaten" or "devoured"). And, the sun will be called tonatiuh or tonalli, sometimes both in the same annals entry. (SW)

ỹ cualoc tonatiuh = there was an eclipse of the sun
Here in This Year: Seventeenth-Century Nahuatl Annals of the Tlaxcala-Puebla Valley, ed. and transl. Camilla Townsend, with an essay by James Lockhart (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2010), 94–95.

Tlanquiya nitlacua huan niixhuitoc. "I just finished eating and Iʻm full."
An idiezac posting on Twitter, June 2010.

vmpa conana, ynic qujujca ichan, ynjc qujquazque: vmpa qujxexeloa, qujtetequj, qujueueloa: oc ie achto qujtonaltia in motecuçuma ce ymetz, mantiuh in qujujqujlia = There they took [the slain captive] up, in order to carry him to the house [of the captor], so that they might eat him. There they portioned him out, cutting him to pieces and dividing him up. First of all they reserved for Moctezumna a thigh, and set forth to take it to him. (16th century, Mexico City)
Fr. Bernardino de Sahagún, Florentine Codex: General History of the Things of New Spain; Book 2—The Ceremonies, No. 14, Part III, eds. and transl. Arthur J. O. Anderson and Charles E. Dibble (Santa Fe and Salt Lake City: School of American Research and the University of Utah, 1951), 47.

Attestations from sources in Spanish: 

yquac sabado a 8 de março qualoc tonatiuh ypan chicuicnahui oras tlayohuac mochi tzatzinque nepapan tototzintzintin yhuan caxtilme = El Sábado 8 de marzo, día de Santo Tomás, eclipsó el sol a las nueve horas. Se obscureció, todos gritaron, los diversos pájaros y los gallos, todos gritaron. (Tlaxcala, 1662–1692)
Juan Buenaventura Zapata y Mendoza, Historia cronológica de la Noble Ciudad de Tlaxcala, transcripción paleográfica, traducción, presentación y notas por Luis Reyes García y Andrea Martínez Baracs (Tlaxcala y México: Universidad Autónoma de Tlaxcala, Secretaría de Extensión Universitaria y Difusión Cultural, y Centro de Investigaciones y Estudios Superiores en Antropología Social, 1995), 238–239.

yquapa yni solar ocse tlaltzintli solar = junto a este solar está otro solar (San Marcos Tlayacac, Morelos, "1546"; no earlier than 1666)
Vidas y bienes olvidados: Testamentos indígenas novohispanos, vol. 2, Testamentos en náhuatl y castellano del siglo XVI, eds., Teresa Rojas Rabiela, Elsa Leticia Rea López, Constantino Medina Lima (Mexico: Consejo Nacional de Ciencias Tecnología, 1999), 80–81.

za teca motzotzona, mohuitequi, in za tenanaltzatihuetzi, in za tequaquatihuetzi = sólo con la gente se golpea, se pega, sólo gruñe a las personas de repente, sólo las muerde repentinamente.
Huehuehtlahtolli. Testimonios de la antigua palabra, ed. Librado Silva Galeana y un estudio introductorio por Miguel León-Portilla (México: Secretaría de Educación Pública, Fondo de Cultura Económica, 1991), 56–57.

Azo quemmanian cueytl, huipilli, itech timopiloz, ¿tleyn quiquaz, tleyn quiz? = Quizás alguna vez te sujetes a la falda, a la camisa. ¿Qué comerá, qué beberá?
Huehuehtlahtolli. Testimonios de la antigua palabra, ed. Librado Silva Galeana y un estudio introductorio por Miguel León-Portilla (México: Secretaría de Educación Pública, Fondo de Cultura Económica, 1991), 70, 73.

ipan Çe Tochin, 1558 años, tlachapolcualoc = En el [año] 1 Tochtli, 1558, hubo plaga de chapulines (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.

IDIEZ morfema: 
cuā.
IDIEZ traduc. inglés: 
to eat s.t.
IDIEZ def. náhuatl: 
nic. Macehualli, tecuani zo tlapiyalli quicamatlalia ce tlamantli, quicuahcua, huan teipan quitoloa. “Araceli quemman quicua cacahuatl cualli quicuahcua para axcanah quechcuatacaniz. ”
IDIEZ def. español: 
A. persona, animal silvestre y animal domestico mete una cosa en la boca cosa que se come, lo mastica y después lo traga. “Araceli cuando come cacahuate lo mastica bien para que no se atore en el cuello.” B. comer.
IDIEZ gramática: 
tlach4.
themes: 
Celestial Phenomena
Food, Eating, Cooking