Search Issues: Update 2026-09-16 - Repairs to some of our search pages are ongoing. Thank you for your continued patience!

Meanwhile, elements of the Advanced Search are working and the Alphabetical Listings are working, too.

tlachinolli teoatl.

Headword: 
tlachinolli teoatl.
Principal English Translation: 

war or battle (metaphor) (see Molina); flood and conflagration; pestilence; disasters

Orthographic Variants: 
tlachinolli teuatl
Alonso de Molina: 

tlachinolli teuatl. guerra o batalla. metaphora.
Alonso de Molina, Vocabulario en lengua castellana y mexicana y mexicana y castellana, 1571, part 2, Nahuatl to Spanish, f. 117v. col. 1. Thanks to Joe Campbell for providing the transcription.

Attestations from sources in English: 

See an image that represents tlachinolli teoatl in the Visual Lexicon of Aztec Hieroglyphs, ed. Stephanie Wood (Eugene, Ore.: Wired Humanities, 2020-present).

otopan muchiuh anozo otopan onquiz: in iuhqui teuatl, tlachinolli: quitoznequi: cocoliztli, anozo uel yehoatl in yaoyotl = They said: Divine liquid and fire have overcome us, have swept over us. This means pestilence or war itself.
Thelma D. Sullivan, "Nahuatl Proverbs, Conundrums, and Metaphors, Collected by Sahagún," Estudios de Cultura Náhuatl 4 (1963), 146–147.

themes: 
Fire, Tobacco, Incense
Metaphors, Proverbs, Riddles
War, Conflict