huecauh.

Headword: 
huecauh.
Principal English Translation: 

for a long time; a long time ago; in remote times

Orthographic Variants: 
huehcāuh, hueca
IPAspelling: 
wehkɑːw
Frances Karttunen: 

HUEHCĀUH a long time; something old / largo tiempo (C), viejo (S) This occurs frequently in the phrases YE HUEHCĀUH ‘long ago,’ OC HUEHCĀUH ‘a long time from now,’ and their negations AYAMŌ HUEHCĀUH ‘recently’ and AOCMŌ HUEHCĀUH ‘in a little while, shortly.’ See HUEHCĀHU(A).
Frances Karttunen, An Analytical Dictionary of Nahuatl (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1992), 83.

Horacio Carochi / English: 

huècāuh = a long time
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), 502.

Lockhart’s Nahuatl as Written: 

huehcāuh, particle. with ye, a long time ago. with oc, a long time in the future. huēi, cāhuitl/cāhua.
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), 218.

Attestations from sources in English: 

amo ac quistoquiliz yn oc huecauhtica = no one is to claim it from him for a long time to come (Coyoacan, 1575)
Beyond the Codices, eds. Arthur J.O. Anderson, Frances Berdan, and James Lockhart (Los Angeles: UCLA Latin American Center, 1976), Doc. 13, 94–95.

ye huecauh omomiquili = she died long ago (Coyoacan, 1622)
Beyond the Codices, eds. Arthur J.O. Anderson, Frances Berdan, and James Lockhart (Los Angeles: UCLA Latin American Center, 1976), Doc. 4, 66–67.

ye huecauh = for a long time (already); a long time ago
oc huecauh = still long time, for a long time
Robert Haskett and Stephanie Wood's notes from Nahuatl sessions with James Lockhart and subsequent research.

Attestations from sources in Spanish: 

nitlanahuatia yn tla cana centetl neciz notestamento yn ye huecauh onicchuih noço codicilia amatepiton = mando que ahora ni en ningún tiempo que pareciere otro testamento, memoria o codicilio (Tepotzotlan, 1653)
Vidas y bienes olvidados: Testamentos en náhuatl y castellano del siglo XVII, vol. 3, Teresa Rojas Rabiela, et al, eds. (México: CIESAS, 2002), 256–257.

yhuan yquac yehueca = En ese entonces hacía tiempo (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), 144–145.

ye huecauhtica = mucho ha
Pedro de Arenas, Vocabulario Manual de las Lenguas Castellana, y Mexicana (Mexico: Henrico Martínez, 1611), 1.

themes: 
Time, Calendar, Frequency