pilli.

Headword: 
pilli.
Principal English Translation: 

a person of noble lineage; or, a child

Orthographic Variants: 
pili, piltontli, piltzintli, pipil
IPAspelling: 
pilli
Alonso de Molina: 

pilli. cauallero, o noble persona.
Alonso de Molina, Vocabulario en lengua castellana y mexicana y mexicana y castellana, 1571, part 2, Nahuatl to Spanish, f. 81v. col. 2. Thanks to Joe Campbell for providing the transcription.

Frances Karttunen: 

PIL-LI pl: PĪPILTIN; possessed form: -PILLŌ noble person / caballero o noble persona (M), los cortesanos del Rey (C for possessed form) There is a variation in vowel length across sources. C and T consistently have a short vowel in the stem; Z consistently has a long one. B in general has the vowel unmarked for length or specifically marks it short but commonly marks it long when the vowel of an adjacent syllable is long. This is not consistent; B has both cihuāpīpīltin and cihuāpīpíltin. B marks the corresponding vowel long in TĒCPILLŌ-TL 'nobility' and TĒCPILCAL-LI 'court.' (The same assimilation appears when B marks the vowel of the last syllable of CUITLAPIL-LI 'tail' short when followed by -LI but long when followed by plural possessive -HUĀN.) The honorific vocative form has two full honorific -TZIN's, NOPILTZINTZINE 'my noble person,' etc. This best makes sense if thought of as the iterative addition of -TZINE to PILTZIN; it is not reduplication, which would give -TZITZINE. PIL-LI is neutral with respect to sex or masculine by default. 'Lady' has the modified form CIHUĀPIL-LI. M has nopilo 'my nephew (from the point of view of a woman),' which is probably a different and contrasting item, since both times that it occurs in M it is spelled with a single 1. See -PIL.
Frances Karttunen, An Analytical Dictionary of Nahuatl (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1992), 195.

Horacio Carochi / English: 

pilli = a noble, child, etc.
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), 509, and see 216-17.

Lockhart’s Nahuatl as Written: 

unpossessed nonreverential, noble(man). possessed, child of someone. unpossessed reverential or diminutive, with -tzīn- or
-tōn-, (small) child. possessed, in vocative, with -tzīntzīn, O my noble (including female). abs. pl. pīpiltin. 230
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), 230.

Attestations from sources in English: 

NOBLE
In the Ordenanzas de Cuauhtinchan, the term pilli is distinguished from macehualli, showing social hierarchical relationships. After contact, Spanish colonizers tried hard to suppress the earlier practice of rulers staying in office many years, although election records show that it happened all the time. In the Ordenanzas, we see the explanation that, when rulers stayed in office a long time, they would feel self-important, and they would come to feel that they were of the pilli class and not the macehualli class that they might well come from (e.g. the tequitlato, a lower-level community officer). (Puebla, sixteenth century)
Luis Reyes García, "Ordenanzas para el gobierno de Cuauhtinchan, año de 1559," Estudios de Cultura Náhuatl 10 (1972), 282–283, paragraph 120.

xillomantzin tlahtohuani culhuacan oncan tlacat aculmiztli çan pilli çan hualla yn nican nemico tlatilolco = Xilomantzin, ruler of Culhuacan, took and asked for her, whence was born Acolmiztli, only a nobleman. He just came here to live in Tlatelolco. (central Mexico, early seventeenth century)
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, 112–113.

pipiltin (plural)
Antonio Rincón, Arte mexicana: Vocbulario breve, que solamente contiene todas las dicciones ue en esta arte se traen por exemplos (1595), 5r.

theuc totolim, ca huey Pillí, cuali Eztlí = Theuctotolim, cah hue:i pilli, cualli eztli = Teuctotolin, who was a great noble of good blood.
Anónimo mexicano, ed. Richley H. Crapo and Bonnie Glass-Coffin (Logan, UT: Utah State University Press, 2005), 50.

Pipiltin Mexíca yei xiquípillí = twenty-four thousand Mexica nobles
Anónimo mexicano, ed. Richley H. Crapo and Bonnie Glass-Coffin (Logan, UT: Utah State University Press, 2005), 30.

Ypan onpoali yhuá chi come xihuitl oazico yn Pilli. Xolotl, ohuallaque hoc yeintin tlatoque = In the forty and seventh year after the noble Xolotl arrived, another three rulers came.
Anónimo mexicano, ed. Richley H. Crapo and Bonnie Glass-Coffin (Logan, UT: Utah State University Press, 2005), 16.

Pili is used in Techialoyan manuscripts in unlikely ways, such as to refer to the viceroy don Antonio de Mendoza. Huey pili is also seen in this genre of manuscripts as a descriptor for various high nobles of prehispanic times.
See the Ocoyacac manuscript, for example, Ms America No. 7, Staatsbibliothek Preussischer Kulturbesitz, folio 1vta

Pilli and pipiltin are both found linked with tlatoani (tlatuani in the Nahuatl document) in a narrative of migration that was translated in the second half of the eighteenth century.
Danièle Dehouve, "Dos relatos sobre migraciones nahuas en el Estado de Guerrero," Estudios de Cultura Náhuatl 12 (1976), see several examples on 144.

CHILD

in tepiltzin tlaçopilli, calitic cunetl chanecaconetl teuiotica tepiltzin
Ichtacaconetl, calpan pilli, calpan conetl, mecaconetl mecapilli = One's child; [that is,] the legitimate child, the child born within the household, the child born within the habitation, the spiritually acceptable child.(central Mexico, sixteenth century).
Fr. Bernardino de Sahagún, Florentine Codex: General History of the Things of New Spain; Book 10 -- The People, No. 14, Part 11, 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), 2.

Ichtacaconetl, calpan pilli, cakpan conetl, mecaconetl mecapilli = The secret child, the bastard; the bastard, the child of a slave, the slave's child. Fr. Bernardino de Sahagún, Florentine Codex: General History of the Things of New Spain; Book 10 -- The People, No. 14, Part 11, 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), 2.

ayac ypilçin = she has no children (Cuernavaca region, ca. 1540s) The Book of Tributes: Early Sixteenth-Century Nahuatl Censuses from Morelos, ed. and transl. S. L. Cline, (Los Angeles: UCLA Latin American Center Publications, 1993), 126–127.

muchin pipiltzitzintin yhuan sequintin huehuey tlaca oquitzatzilique oquilhuique pan pan pa señor capitan ye tapismiquisque ye tapismiquisque = all the children together with some adults shouted to him, telling him "Bread, bread, bread, lord captain, we'll starve, we'll starve!" (Puebla, 1675–1699)
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), 206.

absolutive reverential means child and is genderless (44–45); form without reverential always means male noble (46–47)
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), xviii

At times we find an unusual h before an initial i: hitlaçopiltzin = his precious son (San Pablo Tepemaxalco, Toluca Valley, 1693)
Caterina Pizzigoni, ed., Testaments of Toluca (Stanford: Stanford University Press and UCLA Latin American Center Publications, 2007), 131.

-piltzin = son
Caterina Pizzigoni, ed., Testaments of Toluca (Stanford: Stanford University Press and UCLA Latin American Center Publications, 2007), 19.

nopihua has been seen for nopilhuan in Toluca
Caterina Pizzigoni, ed., Testaments of Toluca (Stanford: Stanford University Press and UCLA Latin American Center Publications, 2007), 38.

also spelled: pili
Thelma Sullivan, Documentos Tlaxcaltecas del siglo XVI en lengua náhuatl (Mexico: Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, 1987), 30.

topilhuan = our children
The possessed form just about always means children rather than nobles.
James Lockhart, personal communication, December 19, 2007.

oquitemacaya polboz ynic ynca omocacayahua pipiltoton = He gave out powders by means of which he took advantage of small children
Here in This Year: Seventeenth-Century Nahuatl Annals of the Tlaxcala-Puebla Valley, ed. and transl. Camilla Townsend, with an essay by James Lockhart (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2010), 150–151.

piltõtli. maviltia. tlaololoa. tzatzi. = Small child [man's or woman's]: It amuses itself, it makes mud balls, it cries out.
Fray Bernardino de Sahagún, Primeros Memoriales, ed. Thelma D. Sullivan, et al. (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1997), 252.

piltzintli. ayamo tlacaq’. ayamo quimati = Child [man’s or woman’s]: It does not yet understand, it knows nothing yet
Fray Bernardino de Sahagún, Primeros Memoriales, ed. Thelma D. Sullivan, et al. (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1997), 252.

Ioan mitoaya, in aquin pilli, tlazopilli: motenoaya: tecozqui, tequetzal, tepiltzin = And nobles and sons of nobles were called: Someone's necklace, someone's quetzal-feather plumage; someone's son.
Thelma D. Sullivan, "Nahuatl Proverbs, Conundrums, and Metaphors, Collected by Sahagún," Estudios de Cultura Náhuatl 4 (1963), 156–157.

Attestations from sources in Spanish: 

NOBLE / PRINCIPAL

nezqui ynitoca Juan Ximenez pilli nican chaneh cibdad ytech pohui yn altepetl ocotelulco = comparecio el nombrado Juan Jimenez noble, vive aqui en la ciudad pertenece al pueblo de ocotelulco (Tlaxcala, 1560)
Catálogo de documentos escritos en Náhuatl, siglo XVI, vol. I (México, Gobierno del Estado de Tlaxcala, 2013), 4.

nipinlli nichane nican çiudad tetzcuco = soy un pilli residente en la ciudad de Tetzcuco. (Tetzcoco, 1587)
Benjamin Daniel Johnson, “Transcripción de los documentos Nahuas de Tezcoco en los Papeles de la Embajada Americana resguardados en el Archivo Histórico de la Biblioteca Nacional de Antropología e Historia de México”, en Documentos nahuas de Tezcoco, Vol. 1, ed. Javier Eduardo Ramírez López (Texcoco: Diócesis de Texcoco, 2018), 122–123.
…nopiltzin noueyo quitoua yn chichimeca yn tepilhuan y mota motepeuh mamotocayoti = Mi pila, mi huello, dicen los tepilhuan chichimeca, tu padre, tu conquistador: que se nombre. (Quauhtinchan, s. XVI)
Historia Tolteca-Chichimeca, eds. Paul Kirchhoff, Lina Odena Güemes, y Luis Reyes García (México: CISINAH, INAH-SEP, 1976), 193, 166.

Auh inic moyecchivaz yn ynic vel mochivaz yz cecexiuhtica omentin regidorme ixquetzalozque quimocuitlavizque ypan tlatozque y yevantin yn neҫizque y amo pipiltin = Y para que esto se haga correctamente, para que se realice bien, cada año se encargará a dos regidores para cuidar y averiguar sobre los que aparezcan que no son pillis. (Cuauhtinchan, Puebla, s. XVI)
Luis Reyes García, "Ordenanzas para el gobierno de Cuauhtinchan, año de 1559," Estudios de Cultura Náhuatl 10 (1972), 282–283.

auh in tlaqualitoloca (f. 7 v.) vel quichiva yn itequiuh ҫa oc no hevan tepixcatizque yn occe xivitl ҫan oncan tlantiez ynic amo moveynequizque ynic amo mopilitozque ca macevaltin no yvan ynic amo tecueҫozque ynic amo tlacomonizque = Y si se habla bien de ellos, si realizan bien su trabajo otra vez, ellos serán tepixque, un año más solamente, con lo cual terminarán, para que no se sientan importantes, para que no digan que son pillis, puesto que son macehuales; y también para que no ocasionen pena a alguien, para que no alboroten a la gente (Cuauhtinchan, Puebla, s. XVI)
Luis Reyes García, "Ordenanzas para el gobierno de Cuauhtinchan, año de 1559," Estudios de Cultura Náhuatl 10 (1972), 282–283.

yn itoca don Pasqual Ramirez amo pili çan inahuac homoscalti teopixque moquixtianochichihua = el llamado don Pascual Ramírez, que no era pilli, se había criado con los sacerdotes, se vestía como cristiano (Tlaxcala, 1662–1692)
Juan Buenaventura Zapata y Mendoza, Historia cronológica de la Noble Ciudad de Tlaxcala, transcripción paleográfica, traducción, presentación y notas por Luis Reyes García y Andrea Martínez Baracs (Tlaxcala y México: Universidad Autónoma de Tlaxcala, Secretaría de Extensión Universitaria y Difusión Cultural, y Centro de Investigaciones y Estudios Superiores en Antropología Social, 1995), 610–611.

mochiuh gobernador Quiahuiztlan yn itoca don Pasqual Ramirrez chane San Bartasar Tlapitzahuacan amo pili yn itech hoquizqui çan itlamozcalti totatzin frey Agostin de Artiaga = fue gobernador el llamado don Pascual Ramírez, de Quiahuiztlan, habitante de San Baltazar Tlapitzahuacan. No era descendiente de pilli, sólo era criado de nuestro padre fray Agustín de Arteaga. (Tlaxcala, 1662–1692)
Juan Buenaventura Zapata y Mendoza, Historia cronológica de la Noble Ciudad de Tlaxcala, transcripción paleográfica, traducción, presentación y notas por Luis Reyes García y Andrea Martínez Baracs (Tlaxcala y México: Universidad Autónoma de Tlaxcala, Secretaría de Extensión Universitaria y Difusión Cultural, y Centro de Investigaciones y Estudios Superiores en Antropología Social, 1995), 566–567.

omo tlasentequilili in to huei tlatocasin pili, Conde de monterey = nuestro gran Señor el Virrey, Conde de Monterrey (Estado de Hidalgo, ca. 1722?)
Rocío Cortés, El "nahuatlato Alvarado" y el Tlalamatl Huauhquilpan: Mecanismos de la memoria colectiva de una comunidad indígena (New York: Hispanic Seminary of Medieval Studies, Colonial Spanish American Series, 2011), 29, 40.

totlaçopiltzin señor Naldas = nuestro querido pilli señor Naldas (Tepotzotlan, 1631)
Vidas y bienes olvidados: Testamentos en náhuatl y castellano del siglo XVII, vol. 3, Teresa Rojas Rabiela, et al, eds. (México: CIESAS, 2002), 180–181.

yn huey pili ça notachcocoltzin Yxtlixuchitl tlalmaceuhqui = nuestro bisabuelo, el gran señor Ixtilxochitl, que lo conquistó y ganó (Zempoala, "1610", but probably Techialoyan -related)
Vidas y bienes olvidados: Testamentos en náhuatl y castellano del siglo XVII, vol. 3, Teresa Rojas Rabiela, et al, eds. (México: CIESAS, 2002), 76–77.

don Juan Fernandez pili nican chane Tlaxcalla pohuia ypan cabecera Quiyahuiztlan = don Juan Fernández, pili, vecino de aquí de Tlaxcala, perteneciente a la cabecera de Quiahuiztlan (Coyoacan, 1607)
Vidas y bienes olvidados: Testamentos en náhuatl y castellano del siglo XVII, vol. 3, Teresa Rojas Rabiela, et al, eds. (México: CIESAS, 2002), 62–63.

niquitepanohua Tenanco pipiltin = me alindo con los piles de Tenango (Tizatlan, Tlaxcala, 1595)
Vidas y bienes olvidados: Testamentos indígenas novohispanos, vol. 2, Testamentos en náhuatl y castellano del siglo XVI, eds., Teresa Rojas Rabiela, Elsa Leticia Rea López, Constantino Medina Lima (Mexico: Consejo Nacional de Ciencias Tecnología, 1999), 294–295.

testicome pimpiltin = los testigos, que son los principales (San Juan Teotihuacan, 1563)
Vidas y bienes olvidados: Testamentos indígenas novohispanos, vol. 2, Testamentos en náhuatl y castellano del siglo XVI, eds., Teresa Rojas Rabiela, Elsa Leticia Rea López, Constantino Medina Lima (Mexico: Consejo Nacional de Ciencias Tecnología, 1999), 140–141.

ometin pipiltin = dos principales (San Bartolomé, 1585)
Vidas y bienes olvidados: Testamentos indígenas novohispanos, vol. 1, Testamentos en castellano del siglo XVI y en náhuatl y castellano de Ocotelulco de los siglos XVI y XVII, eds. Teresa Rojas Rabiela, Elsa Leticia Rea López, y Constantino Medina Lima (Mexico: CIESAS, 1999), 254-255.

pillotl = nobleza (ca. 1582, México)
Luis Reyes García, ¿Como te confundes? ¿Acaso no somos conquistados? Anales de Juan Bautista (Mexico: Centro de Investigaciones y Estudios Superiores en Antropología Social, Biblioteca Lorenzo Boturini Insigne y Nacional Basílica de Guadalupe, 2001), 30.

tiregidoresme yn timatlactin tomome yhuan tehuantin timochintin yn tipipiltin yn taltepehuaque Mexico = nosotros los pillis de cabildo y a los doce que somos regidores todos nosotros que somos pillis poseedores del pueblo de México (Centro de Mexico, 1573)
Luis Reyes García, Eustaquio Celestino Solís, Armando Valencia Ríos, et al, Documentos nauas de la Ciudad de México del siglo XVI (México: Centro de Investigación y Estudios Superiores en Antropología Social y Archivo General de la Nación, 1996), 141.

HIJO / HIJA

nopiluantzitziuan omen Elenan Tozpetlacal Maria Ynteicuitzin mamacuilpoualli quicuizque = mis hijas que son dos, Elena Tospetlacatl [y] María Intecuitzin, que han de coger a ciento
Vidas y bienes olvidados: Testamentos indígenas novohispanos, vol. 1, Testamentos en castellano del siglo XVI y en náhuatl y castellano de Ocotelulco de los siglos XVI y XVII, eds. Teresa Rojas Rabiela, Elsa Leticia Rea López, y Constantino Medina Lima (Santa Bárbara, Ocotelulco, Tlaxcala, 1588), 322–323.

ne topila:uan = la familia
pila:huan = hijos
Tirso Canales, Nahuat (San Salvador: Universidad de El Salvador, Editorial Universitaria, 1996), 23.