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tel.

Headword: 
tel.
Principal English Translation: 

yet, however, but, "then" (can often be ignored), notwithstanding; even more; nevertheless; after all

IPAspelling: 
teːl
Alonso de Molina: 

tel. el higado, empero, o mas. conjunction aduersatiua, o la tabla delos pechos.
Alonso de Molina, Vocabulario en lengua castellana y mexicana y mexicana y castellana, 1571, part 2, Nahuatl to Spanish, f. 96r. col. 2. Thanks to Joe Campbell for providing the transcription.

Frances Karttunen: 

TĒL but, however, nonetheless (implying difficulty or doubt) / conjunción adversativa (M), duda si haría algo, o dificultad de hacerlo (C), pero (C) This frequently binds with other particles, AHTĒL 'is it not clear?,' MĀTĒL 'although,’MĀZOTĒL 'supposing that,’ TĒLYEH 'but,' QUĒNTĒL 'somehow.'
Frances Karttunen, An Analytical Dictionary of Nahuatl (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1992), 220.

Horacio Carochi / English: 

tēl = but, after all, 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), 512.

Andrés de Olmos: 

Telh, quiere dezir empero.
Andrés de Olmos, Arte para aprender la lengua Mexicana, ed. Rémi Siméon, facsimile edition ed. Miguel León-Portilla (Guadalajara: Edmundo Aviña Levy, 1972), 185.

Lockhart’s Nahuatl as Written: 

particle. but, however. 233
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), 233.

Attestations from sources in English: 

tel = yet
John Bierhorst, Cantares Mexicanos: Songs of the Aztecs (1985, 152–153.

tel = but, though
Daniel Garrison Brinton, Ancient Nahuatl Poetry: Containing the Nahuatl Text of XXVII Ancient Mexican Poems (1887), 162.

auh in male, amo uel qujquaia, yn jnacaio imal, qujtoaia, cujx çan no ne njnoquaz: ca yn iquac caci, qujtoa, ca iuhquj nopiltzin: Auh in malli, qujtoa ca notatzin: auh tel tepal qujquaia intemal = And the captor might not eat the flesh of his captive. He said: “Shall I, then, eat my own flesh?” For when he took [the captive], he had said: “He is as my beloved son.” And the captive said: “He is as my beloved father.” And yes he might eat of someone else’s captive. (16th century, Mexico City)
Fr. Bernardino de Sahagún, Florentine Codex: General History of the Things of New Spain; Book 2—The Ceremonies, No. 14, Part III, 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, 1951), 52.

Attestations from sources in Spanish: 

tel oc omonemiti = en verdad aun vivió (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), 400–401.

tel ça niman... = en verdad, luego... (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), 422–423.

tel quimati ynonamic yxpan inic tetlaneuhtih = además que mi mujer lo sabete cómo los prestamos
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), 268-269.