Search Issues: Update 2026-09-16 - Repairs to some of our search pages are ongoing. Thank you for your continued patience!

Meanwhile, elements of the Advanced Search are working and the Alphabetical Listings are working, too.

petzcoa.

Headword: 
petzcoa.
Principal English Translation: 

to slip, to slide; to slide something (see Molina and Karttunen)

IPAspelling: 
petskoɑː
Alonso de Molina: 

petzcoa. nino. (pret. oninopetzco.) resualar, deslizarse, o descabullirse de entre otros.
Alonso de Molina, Vocabulario en lengua castellana y mexicana y mexicana y castellana, 1571, part 2, Nahuatl to Spanish, f. 81r. col. 2. Thanks to Joe Campbell for providing the transcription.

Frances Karttunen: 

PETZCOĀ vrefl.vt to slip, slide; to slide something along / resbalar, deslizarse, o descabullirse de entre otros (M), se resbala (T), lo resbala (T) This seems to be related to PETZOĀ 'to make something smooth, to polish something.'PETZCALHUIĀ applic. PETZCOĀ. PETZCŌLŌ nonact. PETZCOĀ.
Frances Karttunen, An Analytical Dictionary of Nahuatl (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1992), 192.

Attestations from sources in English: 

auh in vtli vel petzcauhtimoquetz, aoc vel nenemoa, ça nepepetzcolo, ça neaalaoalo = And the road became very slippery; one could no longer walk on it, but would slip and slide.
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), 216.