metztli.

Headword: 
metztli.
Principal English Translation: 

a month; moon; crescent (see Karttunen and Lockhart); see also our entry for metztli meaning the leg of an animal or a person (and see Molina)

Orthographic Variants: 
meztli, mestli, metzintli, mextli
IPAspelling: 
meːtstɬi
Alonso de Molina: 

metztli. luna, o pierna de hombre o de animal, o mes.
Alonso de Molina, Vocabulario en lengua castellana y mexicana y mexicana y castellana, 1571, part 2, Nahuatl to Spanish, f. 55v. col. 1. Thanks to Joe Campbell for providing the transcription.

Frances Karttunen: 

MĒTZ-TLI moon, month / luna o mes (C) M combines the glosses of MĒTZ-TLI and METZ-TLI ‘thigh, leg’ in a single entry.
Frances Karttunen, An Analytical Dictionary of Nahuatl (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1992), 144.

Lockhart’s Nahuatl as Written: 

moon, month (225)
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), 225.

Attestations from sources in English: 

Auh in iquac uel ompoliuh, mitoa: ommic in metzli. = And when he had completely disappeared, it was said: "The moon hath died." (central Mexico, sixteenth century)
Fr. Bernardino de Sahagún, Florentine Codex: General History of the Things of New Spain; Book 7 -- The Sun, Moon, and Stars, and the Binding of the Venus, No. 14, Part VIII, 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, 1961), 3.

teopa tlaxcalchihualistli yey metzintli = baking at the church for three months (Durango, late-sixteenth century)
Beyond the Codices, eds. Arthur J.O. Anderson, Frances Berdan, and James Lockhart (Los Angeles: UCLA Latin American Center, 1976), Doc. 23, 128–129.

Yhuan yn ypan in omoteneuh meztli miyequintin atlan micque yn matlanhuique macehualtin = and in the aforementioned month many commoners [indigenous people] died in the water and drowned. (Mexico City, 1600–1630)
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), 202.

mani meztli = in the month of
Beyond the Codices, eds. Arthur J.O. Anderson, Frances Berdan, and James Lockhart (Los Angeles: UCLA Latin American Center, 1976), 96–7.

Auh niman ic hualmoma yn metztli. octubre. = Then came the month of October. (early seventeenth century, central New Spain)
Annals of His Time: Don Domingo de San Antón Muñón Chimalpahin Quauhtlehuanitzin, James Lockhart, Susan Schroeder, and Doris Namala, eds. and transl. (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2006), 104–105.

mestli oqualoc = There was a lunar eclipse.
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), 188–189.

amo çan yc ye quimoneneuilia in tonatiuh in metztli = not even the sun or the moon is equal to her (late sixteenth century, Central Mexico)
Louise M. Burkhart, Before Guadalupe: The Virgin Mary in Early Colonial Nahuatl Literature, Institute for Mesoamerican Studies Monograph 13 (Albany: University at Albany, 2001), 29.

Ca yn itlanextilliztzin Ca quicenpannahuia yn ixquich. yn necentlanextiliztli yn cenca quipanahuia yn tonatiuh yn metztli = her light completely surpasses all light, it greatly surpasses the sun and the moon (early seventeenth century, Central Mexico)
Louise M. Burkhart, Before Guadalupe: The Virgin Mary in Early Colonial Nahuatl Literature, Institute for Mesoamerican Studies Monograph 13 (Albany: University at Albany, 2001), 104.

y yacametz = his nose ornament in the form of a crescent. (central Mexico, sixteenth century)
Fray Bernardino de Sahagún, Primeros Memoriales, ed. Thelma D. Sullivan, et al. (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1997), 108.

yn quenin huel quimonextiliz. ca yn ihquac. yc ye pehua. ye tlacoҫahuia. in ye mixtlapachoz. yca metztli tonatiuh. yn motenehua ye qualoz. yn ilhuicatl ca nohuiampa mixtli yc tzauhctimanca. acan huel hualnecia = for when the light began to fade and the surface of the sun to be covered by the moon, which is called being eaten, the sky was closed everywhere by clouds, [the sun] could appear nowhere (central Mexico, 1611)
Annals of His Time: Don Domingo de San Antón Muñón Chimalpahin Quauhtlehuanitzin, James Lockhart, Susan Schroeder, and Doris Namala, eds. and transl. (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2006), 182–3.

nauhteylhuicapan in yatiuh tonatiuh. auh yn metztli. ca ye yc itech in yatiuh ynic centeylhuicapa. yn huel ye ytech yn quiyahuallohua tlalli = the sun goes in the four[th] heaven, and the moon goes in the first heaven that rotates all around the earth (central Mexico, 1611)
Annals of His Time: Don Domingo de San Antón Muñón Chimalpahin Quauhtlehuanitzin, James Lockhart, Susan Schroeder, and Doris Namala, eds. and transl. (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2006), 182–3.

Attestations from sources in Spanish: 

Tonatiw iwan meetstli (El sol y la luna). "Unos hermanos se dan cuenta de que un venado es su padre. Matan al venado y a su madre. Hacen una fogata, se echan en la lumbre y se convierten en sol y luna." (Escuchado en San José Miahuatlán, Ver. Ramírez, 1950, 1–4; Barlow y Ramírez, 1962, 58–61.)
Fernando Horcasitas, "La narrativa oral náhuatl (1920–1975)," Estudios de Cultura Náhuatl 13 (1978), 177–209, ver 184.

yquac titonalhuaque huel mochi huahuac toctli çe meztica yn amo quiauh = En ese entonces sufrimos una gran sequía. Todas la siembra se secó, durante un mes no llovió (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), 266–267.

siete de marzo de mil quinientos setenta y seis años = yc chicomiluitl mani metztli de março de 1576 años (San Bernabé Iczotitlan, Ocotelulco, 1576)
Vidas y bienes olvidados: Testamentos indígenas novohispanos, vol. 1, Testamentos en castellano del siglo XVI y en náhuatl y castellano de Ocotelulco de los siglos XVI y XVII, eds. Teresa Rojas Rabiela, Elsa Leticia Rea López, y Constantino Medina Lima (Mexico: CIESAS, 1999), 200–201.

ynin cahuytl metztli huey miccaylhuitl = en este tiempo, en el mes Huey Miccailhuitl
Anneliese Monnich, "El Altepeamatl de Ocoyacac, México," Indiana 2 (1974), 168.

IDIEZ morfema: 
mētztli.
IDIEZ traduc. inglés: 
1. moon. 2. month.
IDIEZ def. náhuatl: 
1. Ce tlahuilli tlen panquiza zan tlayohua pan elhuicatl; quemmantzin mochihua yahualtic huan quemmanya huihcoltic. “Yalhuaya tlayohua huetzqui notatah pampa axcanah quizqui metztli. ” 2. Cempohualli huan mahtlactli tonatiuh. “Ni metztli niyaz Veracruz niquinpaxaloti notatahhuan. ”
IDIEZ gramática: 
tlat.