⚠ Site currently under repair ⚠

Search Issues: Update 2026-08-06

Some of our more complex, multi-field searches (such as the search field on our homepage and Search All Fields) are currently under repair and may not work as expected.

Thank you to all our users who emailed to alert us to the problem! We hope to have it repaired soon.

Meanwhile, elements of the Advanced Search are working and the Alphabetical Listings are working, too.

cuapitzahuac.

Headword: 
cuapitzahuac.
Principal English Translation: 

a triangular shape narrow at the top and wide at the bottom (see Molina)

Orthographic Variants: 
quapitzauac, quapitzahuac
Alonso de Molina: 

quapitzauac. figura ahusada hazia arriba, y ancho en lo baxo.
Alonso de Molina, Vocabulario en lengua castellana y mexicana y mexicana y castellana, 1571, part 2, Nahuatl to Spanish, f. 85r. col. 2. Thanks to Joe Campbell for providing the transcription.

Attestations from sources in English: 

iuhquj in tlemjiaoatl, iuhqujn tlecueçallotl, iuhqujn ilhuqujn tlaujzcalli pipixauhticaca, injc neçia iuhqujn ilhujcatl qujçoticac, tzimpatlaoac, quapitzaoac = like a flame, a tongue of fire, as if it were showering the light of the dawn. It appeared as if it were piercing the heavens; it was wide at the base and pointed at the top. (central Mexico, sixteenth century)
Fr. Bernardino de Sahagún, Florentine Codex: General History of the Things of New Spain; Book 8 -- Kings and Lords, no. 14, Part IX, 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), 17.