tenextli. | Nahuatl Dictionary

tenextli.

Headword:

tenextli.

Principal English Translation:

lime (from burned or slaked limestone) (see Molina and Karttunen); this is a compound of te- (from tetl) and nextli (ashes), which fairly clearly points to burned stone, in this case limestone, called cal in Spanish, and used in construction (for stucco) and for making tortillas; this may be the root for nixtamal, but see nextli

IPAspelling:

teneʃtɬi

Alonso de Molina:

tenextli. cal.
Alonso de Molina, Vocabulario en lengua castellana y mexicana y mexicana y castellana, 1571, part 2, Nahuatl to Spanish, f. 99r. col. 2. Thanks to Joe Campbell for providing the transcription.

Frances Karttunen:

TENEX-TLI lime / cal (M) This is abundantly attested in Z and also appears in T. See TE-TL, NEX-TLI.
Frances Karttunen, An Analytical Dictionary of Nahuatl (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1992), 225.

Attestations from sources in English:

in tenexnamacac, tetlapanqui, tenextlati, tenexmoloni = the seller of lime [is] a shatterer of rocks, a burner of limestone, a slaker of lime (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), 78.