tlaquetzalli.

Headword: 
tlaquetzalli.
Principal English Translation: 

advice (see Molina); a fable (see Molina); or, a wooden column or pillar (see Molina); also, a piece of land? (see examples from Vidas y bienes olvidados); also related to cacao? (see Sahagún)

IPAspelling: 
tɬɑketsɑlli
Alonso de Molina: 

tlaquetzalli. conseja, o fabula, o coluna y pilar de madera quadrado.
Alonso de Molina, Vocabulario en lengua castellana y mexicana y mexicana y castellana, 1571, part 2, Nahuatl to Spanish, f. 134r. col. 1. Thanks to Joe Campbell for providing the transcription.

Attestations from sources in English: 

yn ixquich callitic onoc yn comitl yn quahuitl yoan tlaquetzalli ontetl yoan hontetl quauhtlancochcochtli (sic) = everything inside the house, the pots, the wood, and the two wooden pillars, the two (wooden brackets) (n.d., sixteenth century) (central Mexico, sixteenth-century)
Testaments of Culhuacan (provisionally modified first edition), eds. Sarah Cline and Miguel León-Portilla, online version http://www.history.ucsb.edu/cline/testaments_of_culhuacan.pdf, 6.

Tlaquetzalnamacac, atlaquetzalnamacac, tecini, teatlitiani, teihiiocuitiani, cacaoateci, tlaxamania, tlapaiana, tlacuechoa tlatzontequi, tlacentlaca, tlacenquixtia, aciaoa, tlaciaoa, tlaapachoa, tlaamauhtia, tlaaiçauia, tlaacana, tlatzetzeloa, tlaatzetzeloazuia, aquetza, tlaacana, tlatzotzontlalia, tlapopoçonallalia, tlatzotzoncui, tlatetzaoacaquetza, tlatetzaoacaacana, tlaaquechia, tlaatecuinia = The seller of fine chocolate. The seller of fine chocolate [is] one who grinds, who provides people with drink, with repasts. She grinds cacao [beans]; she crushes, breaks, pulverizes them. She chooses, selects [read tlacentlaça], separates them. She drenches, soaks, steeps, them. She adds water sparingly, conservatively; aerates it, filters it, strains it, pours it back and forth, aerates it; she makes it form a head, makes it foam; she removes the head, makes it thicken, makes it dry, pours water in, stirs water into it. (sixteenth-century, central Mexico)
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), 93.

The standing beams to the right and left of the opening to a calli are called tlaquetzalli, tlaquetzalmimilli, or tlaxillotl. For more information see:
Sahagún, Bernardino de, Antonio Valeriano, Alonso Vegerano, Martín Jacobita, Pedro de San Buenaventura, Diego de Grado, Bonifacio Maximiliano, Mateo Severino, et al. Historia general de las cosas de Nueva España (Florentine Codex), Ms. Mediceo Palatino 218–20, Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana, Florence, MiBACT, 1577. Available at Digital Florentine Codex/Códice Florentino Digital, edited by Kim N. Richter, Alicia Maria Houtrouw, Kevin Terraciano, Jeanette Peterson, Diana Magaloni, and Lisa Sousa, bk. 11, fol. 119v. Los Angeles: Getty Research Institute, 2023. https://florentinecodex.getty.edu/en/book/11/folio/119v?spTexts=&nhTexts= . Accessed 12 November 2025.

Attestations from sources in Spanish: 

quahuitl untecpantli niquihtohua monepan tlaxelloz centecpantli quahmimiliz yoan yn iapechyo mochiuhtoc yn heui pantli yoan centlapal tlaquetzalli yoan centetl puerta = cuarenta moril[l]os y una viga que se había de echar en medio, y los pilares y una puerta (Cuauhtitlán, 1599)
Vidas y bienes olvidados: Testamentos indígenas novohispanos, vol. 2, Testamentos en náhuatl y castellano del siglo XVI, eds., Teresa Rojas Rabiela, Elsa Leticia Rea López, Constantino Medina Lima (Mexico: Consejo Nacional de Ciencias Tecnología, 1999), 330–331.

yn itlaquetzal yn calli tlapancalli = su tierra y la casa de terrado
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), 280–281.