⚠ 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.

mina.

Headword: 
mina.
Principal English Translation: 

to shoot, stab, or poke someone

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.

IPAspelling: 
miːnɑ
Alonso de Molina: 

mina. nitla. tirar saeta, o garrocha.
Alonso de Molina, Vocabulario en lengua castellana y mexicana y mexicana y castellana, 1571, part 2, Nahuatl to Spanish, f. 56v. col. 2. Thanks to Joe Campbell for providing the transcription.

mina. nite. (pret. onitemin.) asaetear a alguno. o picar como tauano o abispa.
Alonso de Molina, Vocabulario en lengua castellana y mexicana y mexicana y castellana, 1571, part 2, Nahuatl to Spanish, f. 56v. col. 2. Thanks to Joe Campbell for providing the transcription.

mina. niteitz. (pret. oniteitzmin.) sangrar a otro.
Alonso de Molina, Vocabulario en lengua castellana y mexicana y mexicana y castellana, 1571, part 2, Nahuatl to Spanish, f. 56v. col. 2. Thanks to Joe Campbell for providing the transcription.

Frances Karttunen: 

MĪN(A) vt to shoot arrows, to pierce someone with arrows / tirar saeta o garrocha (M), asaetar a alguno (M) [(1)Cf. 96r]. The variant MĪN(I) is abundantly attested in T.
Frances Karttunen, An Analytical Dictionary of Nahuatl (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1992), 148.

Lockhart’s Nahuatl as Written: 

nic. Class 2: ōnicmīn. 225

Attestations from sources in English: 

See an image that represents mina in the Visual Lexicon of Aztec Hieroglyphs, ed. Stephanie Wood (Eugene, Ore.: Wired Humanities, 2020-present).

oncan ce chichimecatl quimin. = a Chichimeca shot him with an arrow there. (1608, Central Mexico)
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), 134–135.

auh in Españoles no quinvalmina in Mexica in ica tepuzmitl, yoan ic quinvalmotla in tlequiquiztli = from there the Spaniards shot at the Mexica with iron bolts and fired guns at them (Mexico City, sixteenth century)
James Lockhart, We People Here: Nahuatl Accounts of the Conquest of Mexico, Repertorium Columbianum v. 1 (Los Angeles: UCLA Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, 1993), 138.

oncan in quiminque ce covatl cenca tomahuac ce chichimecatl = There they shot a very thick snake with arrows; it was a Chichimeca who shot it.
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, 24–25.

yn oyuh quihualmin yc niman oncan momiquilli = when he had thus shot him with an arrow [Motelchiuhtzin] then died
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. 2, 38–39.

themes: 
War, Conflict