⚠ Site currently under repair ⚠

Search Issues: Update 2026-08-06

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.

tleic.

Headword: 
tleic.
Principal English Translation: 

what, what with, why

Orthographic Variants: 
tle ic, tleyc, tle yc
IPAspelling: 
tɬeik
Alonso de Molina: 

Tleic? aque, o paraque?
Alonso de Molina, Vocabulario en lengua castellana y mexicana y mexicana y castellana, 1571, part 2, f. 147r.

Frances Karttunen: 

TLEIC, TLEĪCA to what end? why? / ¿a qué? o ¿para qué? (M), ¿por qué? (M), ¿de qué provecho? (C) [(2)Cf.113r]. C does not mark the I long in either of two attestations of TLEĪC. According to C TLEĪC is used only with the verb ĀY(I) ‘to do something.’ See TLE(H), ĪC, ĪCA.
Frances Karttunen, An Analytical Dictionary of Nahuatl (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1992), 307.