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icnelia.

Headword: 
icnelia.
Principal English Translation: 

to help or benefit someone; to favor someone; to befriend someone; when used in conjunction with God the euphemistic meaning is to bring about one's death (see Karttunen and Lockhart)

Orthographic Variants: 
icnellia
IPAspelling: 
ikneːliɑː
Alonso de Molina: 

Icnelia. nino. hazer bie˜ assi mismo. P. oninocneli.
Icnelia. ninonoma. idem. Pre. oninonoma icneli.
Icnelia. nite. hazer bien a otro. Pret. oniteicneli.
Alonso de Molina, Vocabulario en lengua castellana y mexicana y mexicana y castellana, 1571, part 2, f. 33r.

Frances Karttunen: 

(I)CNĒLIĀ vrefl,vt to look after one’s own /K093/ welfare; to do a favor for someone, to be charitable to someone / hacer bien a sí mismo (M), hacer bien a otro (M) See (I)CNŌ-TL, (I)CNĪUH-TLI. (I)CNĒLILIĀ applic (I)CNĒLIĀ
Frances Karttunen, An Analytical Dictionary of Nahuatl (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1992), 94.

Lockhart’s Nahuatl as Written: 

(i)cnēlia, niqu. Class 3: ōniquicnēlih. ōtinēchmocnēlilih, ōannēchmocnēlilihqueh, thank you. related to icnīuh(tli). 219
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), 219.

Attestations from sources in English: 

atle çe melio çe cacahuatl, ic quicnelia in iyolia = With not one coin of little value, with not one cacao bean, does he favor his soul.
Bartolomé de Alva, A Guide to Confession Large and Small in the Mexican Language, 1634, eds. Barry D. Sell and John Frederick Schwaller, with Lu Ann Homza (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1999), 121.

icnelia (verb) = to do good, to benefit
Daniel Garrison Brinton, Ancient Nahuatl Poetry: Containing the Nahuatl Text of XXVII Ancient Mexican Poems (1877), 155.

Innenepanicneliliz in Santôme = the joining in friendship of the saints
Gerónymo de Ripalda, 1758 (Catecismo mexicano, 35–6); translation by Mark Z. Christensen, "Nahua and Maya Catholicisms: Ecclesiastical Texts and Local Religion in Colonial Central Mexico and Yucatan," Ph.D. Dissertation, Pennsylvania State University, 2010, Appendix B, 5.

ytla onechmocnelilitzino y notlaçotatzin. y dios = When my precious father God has befriended me [brought about my death] (San Antonio de Padua, Toluca Valley, 1737)
Caterina Pizzigoni, ed., Testaments of Toluca (Stanford: Stanford University Press and UCLA Latin American Center Publications, 2007), 232.

onechicnelli yn tlacatl aculmiztli = The lord Acolmiztli has shown me favor. (central Mexico, early seventeenth century)
Codex Chimalpahin: Society and Politics in Mexico Tenochtitlan, Tlatelolco, Culhuacan, and Other Nahuatl Altepetl in Central Mexico; The Nahuatl and Spanish Annals and Accounts Collected and Recorded by don Domingo de San Antón Muñón Chimalpahin Quauhtlehuanitzin, eds. and transl. Arthur J. O. Anderson and Susan Schroeder (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1997), vol. 1, 126–127.

in tlaocolliloca in ycneliloca = he is benefited, he is blessed;
icnelia = to do someone a favor, to be charitable to someone
(Juan Bautista, ca. 1599, Mexico City)
Susanne Klaus, Uprooted Christianity: The Preaching of the Christian Doctrine in Mexico, Based on Franciscan Sermons of the 16th Century Written in Nahuatl (Bonn: Bonner Amerikanistische Studien e. V. c/o Seminar für Völkerkunde, Universität Bonn, 1999), 243.

icnelia = to do good, to benefit
Daniel Garrison Brinton, Ancient Nahuatl Poetry: Containing the Nahuatl Text of XXVII Ancient Mexican Poems (1887), 155.

Attestations from sources in Spanish: 

atle çe melio çe cacahuatl, ic quicnelia in iyolia = no dá a su alma ni vna blanca ni vn marauedi
Bartolomé de Alva, A Guide to Confession Large and Small in the Mexican Language, 1634, eds. Barry D. Sell and John Frederick Schwaller, with Lu Ann Homza (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1999), 120–121.