tlacualtia.

Headword: 
tlacualtia.
Principal English Translation: 

to feed (or, cause to eat)

Orthographic Variants: 
tlaqualtia
IPAspelling: 
tɬɑkwɑltiɑː
Alonso de Molina: 

tlaqualtia. nite. (pret. onitetlaqualti.) dar de comer a otro.
Alonso de Molina, Vocabulario en lengua castellana y mexicana y mexicana y castellana, 1571, part 2, Nahuatl to Spanish, f. 133r. col. 1. Thanks to Joe Campbell for providing the transcription.

Frances Karttunen: 

TLACUALTIĀ vt to feed someone / dar de comer a otro (M). The expected causative from TLACUĀ would have a long vowel in the second syllable, but it is consistently attested short. See TLACUAL-LI. TLACUALTILIĀ applic. TLACUALTIĀ. TLACUALTĪLŌ nonact. TLACUALTIĀ.
Frances Karttunen, An Analytical Dictionary of Nahuatl (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1992), 257.

Lockhart’s Nahuatl as Written: 

nic. to feed someone; to have someone for a meal. Class 3: ōnictlaqualtih. causative of quā.
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), 238.

Attestations from sources in English: 

Nitlacualtilo = I'm fed (made to eat);
Tētlacualtilo = People are fed.
Michel Launey, An Introduction to Classical Nahuatl, translated and adapted by Christopher MacKay (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011), 196.

Auh in atlauhcamilpantlaca b = And the people of Atlauhcamilpan are to feed people. (mid-sixteenth century, Coyoacan)
Beyond the Codices, eds. Arthur J.O. Anderson, Frances Berdan, and James Lockhart (Los Angeles: UCLA Latin American Center, 1976), Doc. 26, 154–155.

oapizmiquico. tlaqualtica in macehualtin. altepehuaque = the commoners of the hinterland altepetl were starving for lack of food (early seventeenth century, central New Spain)
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), 84–85.

çan oquixcavhya y tequipa nemi mopapatla y ce oya tequipa y cequiti comotemolia y quimoqualtia ça mocepatlayecoltia = All they do is take turns going on tribute labor. One went on tribute labor; some are looking for a way to get fed. They just all try to make a living together. (Cuernavaca region, ca. 1540s)
The Book of Tributes: Early Sixteenth-Century Nahuatl Censuses from Morelos, ed. and transl. S. L. Cline, (Los Angeles: UCLA Latin American Center Publications, 1993), 208–209.

ça mochitin quivhcatica y miscohuatlayllotlac çano quicepatlaqualtia yn ipilhua = All these just accompany Mixcoatlailotac. Likewise he feeds his children all together. (Cuernavaca region, ca. 1540s)
The Book of Tributes: Early Sixteenth-Century Nahuatl Censuses from Morelos, ed. and transl. S. L. Cline, (Los Angeles: UCLA Latin American Center Publications, 1993), 174–175.

çan mopapatla yn ontetlacualtia yn cuavhnavac = They just take turns going to feed people in Cuernavaca. (Cuernavaca region, ca. 1540s)
The Book of Tributes: Early Sixteenth-Century Nahuatl Censuses from Morelos, ed. and transl. S. L. Cline, (Los Angeles: UCLA Latin American Center Publications, 1993), 240–241.

During an epidemic (cocoliztli) in 1575, one set of annals reports that "ça yehuan tetlacualtiaya teopixque in nohuiyamps" = "The friars all around were feeding people."
Frances Krug, "The Nahuatl Annals of the Tlaxcala-Puebla Region," ch. 5, p. 62, Ph.D. Dissertation draft written in the 1980s, with transcriptions and translations approved by James Lockhart. Cited here by SW.

themes: 
Food, Eating, Cooking
Health, Sickness, Wellness, Medicine
Religion (Christian)