poctli.

Headword:

poctli.

Principal English Translation:

smoke, vapor, fumes (see Karttunen and Molina)

IPAspelling:

poːktɬi

Alonso de Molina:

poctli. humo.
Alonso de Molina, Vocabulario en lengua castellana y mexicana y mexicana y castellana, 1571, part 2, Nahuatl to Spanish, f. 83r. col. 1. Thanks to Joe Campbell for providing the transcription.

Frances Karttunen:

PŌC-TLI smoke, vapor, fumes / humo (M) In compounded and derived forms there is generally the form PŌCH in place of PŌC, but Z retains PŌC, and T has both. PŌCH See PŌC-TLI.
Frances Karttunen, An Analytical Dictionary of Nahuatl (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1992), 200.

Attestations from sources in English:

poctli (noun) = smoke, vapor, fog, mist
Daniel Garrison Brinton, Ancient Nahuatl Poetry: Containing the Nahuatl Text of XXVII Ancient Mexican Poems (1877), 160.

Oncān tipōctiz; oncān tāyauhtiz = There you will become smoke; there you will become mist. (Atenango, between Mexico City and Acapulco, 1629)
Hernando Ruiz de Alarcón, Treatise on the Heathen Superstitions That Today Live Among the Indians Native to This New Spain, 1629, eds. and transl. J. Richard Andrews and Ross Hassig (Norman and London: University of Oklahoma Press, 1984), 87.

tlapopotztoque. poctli mani = they were making much smoke. It was smoky.... (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. 1, 92–93.

poctlevatoc, poctli mantoc poctli moteca = smoke rose, hung about, spread out (Mexico City, sixteenth century)
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), 170.

in ipocyo, in ayauhyo: quitoznequi: imauizo, itenyo: anozo aca ueca oya, ayamo poliui in itenyo, in imauizzo = smoke and mist, meaning his fame and glory, had not yet vanished; or, about someone who had gone far away and whose fame and glory had not faded.
Thelma D. Sullivan, "Nahuatl Proverbs, Conundrums, and Metaphors, Collected by Sahagún," Estudios de Cultura Náhuatl 4 (1963), 144–145.

Attestations from sources in Spanish:

Ichiltica, ipoctica tiquiztiaz in tlalticpac = Permanecerás viviendo en el mundo al lado del chile, del humo (A los niños se les castigaba haciéndoles aspirar humo de chile tostado. Véase Códice Mendocino, fol. 60 v. (centro de México, s. XVI)
Josefina García Quintana, "Exhortación de un padre a su hijo; texto recogido por Andrés de Olmos," Estudios de Cultura Náhuatl 11 (1974), 160–161.

Zan nó ipan inin xihuitl opeuhqui pocmayahui in Popocatl ipan Junio = En el mismo año comenzó a despedir humo el volcán de México, que llaman Popocatl, en junio (Puebla, 1797)
Anales del Barrio de San Juan del Río; Crónica indígena de la ciudad de Puebla, xiglo XVII, eds. Lidia E. Gómez García, Celia Salazar Exaire, y María Elena Stefanón López (Puebla: Instituto de Ciencias Sociales y Humanidades, BUAP, 2000), 91.

themes:

Fire, Tobacco, Incense

Weather, Climate

⚠ Site currently under repair ⚠

Search Issues: Update 2026-08-06