tecuhtli.

Headword: 
tecuhtli.
Principal English Translation: 

a lord, an important nobleman heading a lordly house or teccalli
The Tlaxcalan Actas: A Compendium of the Records of the Cabildo of Tlaxcala (1545-1627), eds. James Lockhart, Frances Berdan, and Arthur J.O. Anderson (Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 1986), 154.

a lord, a knight, or a gentleman (see Molina)

a lord, a member of the high nobility (see Karttunen)

Seen in the twentieth century to mean patrón (see attestations in Spanish).

Orthographic Variants: 
teuctli, tecutli, teuhctli, tecuitli, tecotli, tecotel
IPAspelling: 
teːwktɬi
Alonso de Molina: 

tecutli. cauallero, o prẽcipal.
Alonso de Molinẽa, Vocabulario en lengua castellana y mexicana y mexicana y castellana, 1571, part 2, f. 93v.

tecutli. cauallero, o principal.
Alonso de Molina, Vocabulario en lengua castellana y mexicana y mexicana y castellana, 1571, part 2, Nahuatl to Spanish, f. 93v. col. 2. Thanks to Joe Campbell for providing the transcription.

Frances Karttunen: 

TĒUC-TLI pl: TĒTĒUCTIN; possessed form: -TĒCUIYŌ lord, member of the high nobility / caballero o principal (M), republicano (C) In older Nahuatl texts this is misleadingly written tecutli or tecuhtli, which suggests a bisyllabic stem with a stem-final glottal stop when in fact it is a monosyllabic stem with a final labialized velar consonant. The possessed form -TĒCUIYŌ contrasts with TĒUCYŌ-TL 'lordship, dominion.' In compounds the final consonant of TĒUC tends to delabialize, yielding TĒC. T and Z have -TĒCŌ as the possessed form.
Frances Karttunen, An Analytical Dictionary of Nahuatl (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1992), 237.

Horacio Carochi / English: 

tēuctli = lord
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), 513.

Lockhart’s Nahuatl as Written: 

teuctli = lord
possessed form nearly always -tēcuiyo. abs. pl. tētēuctin.

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), 235.

Attestations from sources in English: 

teteuctin = lords
James Lockhart, The Nahuas after the Conquest: A Social and Cultural History of the Indians of Central Mexico, Sixteenth through Eighteenth Centuries (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1992), 48–9.

"The word 'lord' will often be seen in mundane writing as 'tecuhtli'; in Molina it is 'tecutli,' in Carochi 'teuctli.' Chimalpahin is rare in writing 'teuhctli,' but this feature like much else in the manuscript never varies."
Annals of His Time: Don Domingo de San Antón Muñón Chimalpahin Quauhtlehuanitzin, James Lockhart, Susan Schroeder, and Doris Namala, eds. and transl. (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2006), 14.

tecutli = the magistrate
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), 215.

totecuiyoe totlatocatzine = O our lord, o our ruler; or, totecuiyohuane tlatoquee, O our lords, o rulers, (common phrases in petitions in Nahuatl)
Rebecca Horn and James Lockhart, "Mundane Documents in Nahuatl," in James Lockhart, Lisa Sousa, and Stephanie Wood, eds., Sources and Methods for the Study of Postconquest Mesoamerican Ethnohistory, Preliminary Version (e-book) (Eugene, Ore.: Wired Humanities Project, 2007, 2010), 12.

tecuhtli or teuctli = Frequently seen for sixteenth century officeholders, but so rare by the 18th century that it would be an archaism if seen in a manuscript from that time frame; true also for pipiltin (nobles).
Personal communication, James Lockhart, 1983.

yn ceteuctli otlâtocatia onpohualí, yhuá matlactíió[mo]me xíhuitl, maçihuí hoc nemízquía omotzacua = Each lord reigned for 52 years, although if he had lived longer he resigned.
Anónimo mexicano, ed. Richley H. Crapo and Bonnie Glass-Coffin (Logan, UT: Utah State University Press, 2005), 8.

no yquac tlahtocati yn itztlotzin tlayllotlac teuhctli tlahtohuani tzaqualtitlan tenanco Amaqmecan. yhuan tlotli tlatquic atlauhtecatl teuhctli = Also at that time Itztlotzin tlailotlac teuhctli was ruling at Tzaqualtitlan Tenanco Amaquemecan. And Tlotli tlatquic was atlauhtecatl teuhctli. (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, 112–113.

in motecuçomatzin ipiltoca, auh Tlacatecutli in itlatocatoca = Moteucçoma was his personal name and Tlacateuctli was his title as ruler (central Mexico, 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), 58.

In the eastern part of the Nahua region in the sixteenth century, every teuctli was the holder of a specific lordship involving subordinate nobles, dependents, and lands. Above all, each lord had a title, looking essentially no different from the specific title of a tlatoani, which like the title of a tlatocayotl adhered not to him as an individual but to him as head of a given teccalli (or as head of a calpolli or calpolli subdivision). (central Mexico, sixteenth century)
James Lockhart, The Nahuas after the Conquest: A Social and Cultural History of the Indians of Central Mexico, Sixteenth through Eighteenth Centuries (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1992), 103.

tecutli = indigenous nobleman’s title; lord (central Mexico, late sixteenth century)
S. L. Cline, Colonial Culhuacan, 1580–1600: A Social History of an Aztec Town (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1986), 237.

huitznahuatl teuctli = a lordly title (central Mexico, late sixteenth century)
Sarah Cline, "The Testaments of Culhuacan," in James Lockhart, Lisa Sousa, and Stephanie Wood, eds., Sources and Methods for the Study of Postconquest Mesoamerican Ethnohistory, Preliminary Version (Eugene, OR: Wired Humanities Project, e-book, 2007.

tecuyohtin = authorities (central Mexico, late seventeenth or early eighteenth century)
Byron McAfee translation of the Tepotzotlan Techialoyan, published in Donald Robertson, "The Techialoyan Codex of Tepotztotlan: Codex X (Rylands Mexican Ms. 1)," Bulletin of the John Rylands Library 43:1 (Sept. 1960), 128.

toteo, tteo tto = common abbreviations

Unusual: totto and totetto. (San Bartolomé Tlatelolco, Toluca Valley, 1836)
Miriam Melton Villanueva and Caterina Pizzigoni, "Testament of Margarita Feliciana, San Bartolomé Tlatelolco, 1823," pp. 4–5, Early Nahuatl Virtual Library Project, Wired Humanities, University of Oregon, http://whp.wired-humanities.org/nahlib/envlp/Tlatelolco1.pdf

totecuyo = our lord (central Mexico, late seventeenth or early eighteenth century)
This is used throughout the Techialoyan manuscripts. See, for instance, f. 2vta. of the Ocoyacac manuscript.

totēucyo = our lord (colonial Mexico)
Michel Launey, An Introduction to Classical Nahuatl, translated and adapted by Christopher MacKay (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011), 9.

Attestations from sources in Spanish: 

yn oncan yc tipohui Teccalco ychan quetzalcoatecuitl = vivimos en Teccalco en la casa de quetzalcoatecuitli (Tlaxcala, 1562) [en la casa del señor encargado de la culta a Quetzalcoatl?]
Catálogo de documentos escritos en Náhuatl, siglo XVI, vol. I (México, Gobierno del Estado de Tlaxcala, 2013), 22.

"El tecutli (también tecuitli, tecuictli) era fundador de una teccalli, casa de mayorazgo, o una pilcalli, casa solariega. Fueron llamados 'Principales' por los españoles."
Thelma D. Sullivan, Documentos Tlaxcaltecas del siglo XVI en lengua náhuatl (1987), 51.

tecuitli = "forma que se encuentra muy a menudo en las formas posesivas, como toteuiyo 'nuestro señor', pero también en las palabras tan conocidas como Motecuiçoma. Tecuitli se encuentra también con el sufijo absolutivo -tl en lugar de -tli."
Guilhem Olivier, Símbolos de poder en Mesoamérica (México: UNAM, 2008), 49.

yhuan yquac tecuitic Tlamaceuhcatzin = Entonces se hizo teuhctli Tlamaceuhcatzin (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), 118–119.

tecuitique = se convirtieron en teuhctli
yhuan yquac tecuitic Tlamecuhcatzin = Entonces se hizo teuhctli Tlamaceuhcatzin. (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), 96–97.

Zan quitohua quinequi tlatoz itlac' noteco. = Sólo dice que quiere hablar con mi patrón." (s. XX, Milpa Alta)
Los cuentos en náhuatl de Doña Luz Jiménez, recop. Fernando Horcasitas y Sarah O. de Ford (México: UNAM, 1979), 42–43.

Ce tonaltica amo oyac milpixque. Oya yehuatl, tecotli, omilpiato. = Un día no fue (al campo) el milpero. Fue el patrón a cuidar la milpa. (s. XX, Milpa Alta)
Los cuentos en náhuatl de Doña Luz Jiménez, recop. Fernando Horcasitas y Sarah O. de Ford (México: UNAM, 1979), 32–33.

te:go = papa:
Te:go ni:cnegui ni:o ga corra:l. = Papa: quiero ir al corral. (Sonsonate, El Salvador, Nahuat or Pipil, s. XX)
Tirso Canales, Nahuat (San Salvador: Universidad de El Salvador, Editorial Universitaria, 1996), 17–18.

the:go = teuhtli
Te:go ni:cnegui ni:­o ga corra:l. = Papa: quiero ir al corral. No te:go teguiti. = Mi papa: trabaja. (Sonsonate, El Salvador, Nahuat or Pipil, s. XX)
Tirso Canales, Nahuat (San Salvador: Universidad de El Salvador, Editorial Universitaria, 1996), 19–24.

"Teuhctli es un título que se obtenía después de celebrar ayunos, banquetes y ritos en los templos. Este grado o título podía alcanzarlo: a) principales de linaje; b) mercaderes; c) sacerdotes; d) guerreros. Los teuhctli desempeñaban oficios públicos y recibían tributo en especia y servicio doméstico; la sucesión del título no estaba fijada estrictamente por la herencia; se trataba de elección dentro de u n linaje." Citando a Carrasco 1966. (Quauhtinchan, s. XVI)

themes: 
Politics, Power, Governance
Social Hierarchy, Commoners, Elites