⚠ Site currently under repair ⚠

Search Issues: Update 2026-08-17 - Repairs are ongoing. Thank you for your continued patience!

Some of our more complex, multi-field searches (such as the search field on our homepage and Search All Fields) are currently under repair and may not work as expected.

Thank you to all our users who emailed to alert us to the problem! We hope to have it repaired soon.

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

tlactli.

Headword: 
tlactli.
Principal English Translation: 

body; upper body; chest; torso

Justyna Olko, Turquoise Diadems and Staffs of Office: Elite Costume and Insignia of Power in Aztec and Early Colonial Mexico (Warsaw: Polish Society for Latin American Studies and Centre for Studies on the Classical Tradition, University of Warsaw, 2005), 175.

IPAspelling: 
tɬɑːktɬi
Alonso de Molina: 

tlactli. el cuerpo del hombre, desde la cinta arriba.
Alonso de Molina, Vocabulario en lengua castellana y mexicana y mexicana y castellana, 1571, part 2, Nahuatl to Spanish, f. 119v. col. 1. Thanks to Joe Campbell for providing the transcription.

Frances Karttunen: 

TLĀC-TLI torso / el cuerpo de hombre desde la cinta arriba (M) [(2)Cf.55v,(3)Xp.90].
Frances Karttunen, An Analytical Dictionary of Nahuatl (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1992), 256.

Attestations from sources in English: 

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

tlāctli = chest, upper body
Michel Launey, An Introduction to Classical Nahuatl, translated and adapted by Christopher MacKay (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011), 175.

Aun yn jtlac amo qujoalmjmjlooaia, çan qujoaltemoujaia, qujnauhcaujaia = But his body they did not roll down; rather, they lowered it. Four men carried it. (central Mexico, sixteenth-century)
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), 68.

This may be part of the composition maitl + tlactli = matlactli, or ten, derived from a reference to the ten fingers on the two hands (united by the torso in the middle)
Rémi Siméon, Diccionario de la lengua náhuatl o mexicana (Mexico: Siglo XXI, 1988), xliv.

tlactli = torso
totlac = our torso
in tlactli = the torso
tomaoac = thick
pitzaoac = thin
cultic = curved
cuillotic = thin
veiac = long
ololtic = round
tzapatic = dwarfed
côcolôtic = lean
nacatetic = hard-fleshed
nacatepol = quite fleshy
nanacapol = quite fleshy in parts
ueipol = quite large
cuitlatolpol = corpulent
xitoltic = of reed-like navel
xicuitolpol = distended navel
talapol = quite big
tâtalapol = very big
tatalatic = very big
talapiaztic = large and long
cicicuiltic = thin
omicicuiltecuicuiltic = rib-shaped
acatic = reed-like
cacalachtic = shaped like a bell
eoaio, tilaoac = thick-skinned
eoaioxococ = soft-skinned
quappitztic = lean
ocutic = like a sliver of pine
tlacennapaloa = he carries things all in one piece
tomaoa = it thickens
ueia = it lengthens
toloniui = it becomes round
nanatziui = it fattens
moceceiotia = it accumulates fat
celia = it becomes tender
cuitlatoliui = it becomes corpulent
cuitlatoltia = it is made corpulent
xicuitoliui = it becomes distended of navel
oaqui = it hardens
pitzaoa = it becomes thin
quauhoaqui = it becomes very hard
cîcicuiliui = it becomes thin
omicicuiltecuicuiliui = it becomes rib-shaped
topopochaui = it becomes dry
ticeoa = it becomes pale (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), 118.

Attestations from sources in Spanish: 

tlactli = busto, torso del hombre
Rémi Siméon, Diccionario de la lengua náhuatl o mexicana (Mexico: Siglo XXI, 1988), xliv.