nencahua. | Nahuatl Dictionary

Headword:

nencahua.

Principal English Translation:

to fail to do something out of negligence; or, to let some bad deed go unpunished; or, in the reflexive, to be mocked, to be miserable (see Molina); or, to find oneself made fun of (Olmos 1547, 249v)

Orthographic Variants:

nencaua

IPAspelling:

neːnkɑːwɑ

Alonso de Molina:

nencaua. zan nic. (pret. zan onicnencauh.) dexar de hazer algo por negligencia, o dexar de castigar algun delicto.
nencaua. nino. (pret. oninonencauh.) ser desdichado.
Alonso de Molina, Vocabulario en lengua castellana y mexicana y mexicana y castellana, 1571, part 2, Nahuatl to Spanish, f. 67v. col. 2. Thanks to Joe Campbell for providing the transcription.

Frances Karttunen:

NĒNCĀHU(A) vrefl,vt to be negligent; to leave something undone through negligence / ser desdichado (M), dejar de hacer algo por negligencia o dejar de castigar algún delito (M) This is implied by -NĒNCĀUHYĀN and NĒNCĀHU(I). Its preterit form contrasts in vowel length with -NENCĀUH 'one's servant.'
Frances Karttunen, An Analytical Dictionary of Nahuatl (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1992), 167.

Attestations from sources in English:

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

Attestations from sources in Spanish:

Omonencau inon tlacatl tleca isihuau ocholo ica in oc seya. Ese hombre se quedó abandonado porque su esposa huyó con otro.
Diccionario náhuatl del norte del estado de Puebla (2018), https://www.sil.org/system/files/reapdata/12/88/00/128800813738861478348...

nencahua = hallarme burlado
Gran Diccionario Náhuatl, citando a Olmos 1547, 249v. https://gdn.iib.unam.mx/diccionario/nencahua

themes:

Crime, Punishment