Principal English Translation:
something mildewed, blighted, smutted (see Karttunen); also, perhaps a feather comb (see Sahagún)
Frances Karttunen:
PATZAC-TLI something mildewed, blighted, smutted / trigo, maíz, o cacao añublado o helado o cosas semejantes (M for patzactic] [(4)Cf.7V,125v]. M has patzac in a phrase referring to mildewed maize.
Frances Karttunen, An Analytical Dictionary of Nahuatl (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1992), 189.
Attestations from sources in English:
quetzalpatzactli = a quetzal feather comb (central Mexico, sixteenth century)
Fr. Bernardino de Sahagún, Florentine Codex: General History of the Things of New Spain; Book 8 -- Kings and Lords, no. 14, Part IX, 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, 1951), 74.
Cujx no nen njpatzactzintli = Am I also perchance a useless, withered ear of maize? (central Mexico, sixteenth century)
Fr. Bernardino de Sahagún, Florentine Codex: General History of the Things of New Spain; Book 6 -- Rhetoric and Moral Philosophy, No. 14, Part 7, 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), 226.
Attestations from sources in Spanish:
Cujx no nen njpatzactzintli = Por uentura yo solo soy desmedrado y para poco (centro de Mexico, s. XVI)
Fr. Bernardino de Sahagún, Florentine Codex: General History of the Things of New Spain; Book 6 -- Rhetoric and Moral Philosophy, No. 14, Part 7, 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), 226.
yuan patzactli zan no yuh mopiyaz = y el trigo asse tendra (Tlaxcala, 1581)
Catálogo de documentos escritos en náhuatl, siglo XVI, vol. I (Tlaxcala: Gobierno del Estado de Tlaxcala y el Archivo Histórico del Estado de Tlaxcala, 2013), 275.