Principal English Translation:
to dissolve, melt, or dilute like sugar, salt, snow, an icicle. etc. (see Molina and the note from Carochi); vowel length is different from the patla meaning to exchange, trade, barter
Horacio Carochi / English:
Vowel length is important for contrasting words that might look similar but that mean very different things, dilute, exchange and cure. He notes: Xicmopātili = Dilute it! Xicmopatili = Exchange it! and Xicmopàtili = Cure it!
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), 27.