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teci.

Headword: 
teci.
Principal English Translation: 

to grind maize on a stone (see Molina and Karttunen)

Orthographic Variants: 
teçi
IPAspelling: 
tesi
Alonso de Molina: 

teci. ni. (pret. onitez.) moler mayz, o cosa semejante en piedra.
Alonso de Molina, Vocabulario en lengua castellana y mexicana y mexicana y castellana, 1571, part 2, Nahuatl to Spanish, f. 92v. col. 1. Thanks to Joe Campbell for providing the transcription.

Frances Karttunen: 

TEC(I) pret: TEZ to grind something like corn meal / moler maíz o cosa semejante en piedra (M), muele (T) This verb and its derivative TEX-TLI 'flour, meal' are abundantly attested with the vowel of the initial syllable short. Hence it is a clear mistake that on Cf.33r this verb and its nonactive form appear with the vowel marked long. T has this as a transitive verb 'to grind something.'TEXĪHUA nonact. TEC(I).
Frances Karttunen, An Analytical Dictionary of Nahuatl (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1992), 216.

Lockhart’s Nahuatl as Written: 

ni. Class 2: ōnitez. 232
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), 232.

Attestations from sources in English: 

Niman ic tlecujllan, qujtoca in ticitl, in jxic cioapiltzintli: qujl ic qujnezcaiotia, acampa ianj in cioatzintli: ҫan vel calitic, inemja, ҫan vel calitic ichan, amo monequj in campa iaz: ioan quitoznequj, vel itequjuh, in atl, in tlaqualli: achioaz, tlaqualchioaz, teciz, tzaoaz, hiqujtiz = Then the midwife buried the umbilical cord of the noblewoman by the hearth. It was said that by this she signified that the little woman would nowhere wander. Her dwelling place was only within the house; her home was only within the house; it was not necessary for her to go anywhere. And it meant that her very duty was drink, food. She was to prepare drink, to prepare food, to grind, to spin, to weave. (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), 173.

teci = it grinds (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), 109.

Attestations from sources in Spanish: 

ocann itetzin ycomonidad tetziquen = donde muelen las molenderas de la comunidad (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), 136–137.

themes: 
Corn, Maize
Food, Eating, Cooking