cuauhtema. | Nahuatl Dictionary

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cuauhtema.

Headword:

cuauhtema.

Principal English Translation:

has this as both transitive and intransitive. to beat someone with a stick (see Karttunen)

IPAspelling:

kwɑwtemɑ

Frances Karttunen:

CUAUHTEMA Z has this as both transitive and intransitive. to beat someone with a stick / le pega (Z), le da una paliza, le aporrea (con palo) (Z) [(5)Zp.12,93,95,150,187]. M has quauhtema ‘to roof a house with wood; to board, plank floor a house’ which is clearly derived from TĒM(A) ‘to fill up,’ while none of the Z attestations have the vowel TE long. The verb TEM(A) ‘to take a sweat bath’ has a short vowel and refers to an activity involving beating oneself with leafy branches. Since Z never drops the stem vowel in verbs of this type, it cannot be determined whether the preterit of this would be –TEN, as in the case of TEM(A). See CUAHU(I)-TL, TEM(A).
Frances Karttunen, An Analytical Dictionary of Nahuatl (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1992), 63.