⚠ 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.

tzacuiltia.

Headword: 
tzacuiltia.
Principal English Translation: 

to punish someone
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), 240.

IPAspelling: 
tsɑkwiltiɑː
Alonso de Molina: 

tzacuiltia. nitetla. (pret. onitetlatzacuilti.) castigar o justiciar a alguno.
Alonso de Molina, Vocabulario en lengua castellana y mexicana y mexicana y castellana, 1571, part 2, Nahuatl to Spanish, f. 151v. col. 1. Thanks to Joe Campbell for providing the transcription.

Frances Karttunen: 

TZACUILTIĀ vt to punish someone / castigar o justiciar a alguno (M) In B and Z this is abundantly attested with the vowel of the second syllable long, while in C it is exceptionlessly attested with the vowel unmarked for length. By general rule it should be short. caus. TZACU(A).
Frances Karttunen, An Analytical Dictionary of Nahuatl (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1992), 310.

Lockhart’s Nahuatl as Written: 

nictla. Class 3: ōnictlatzacuiltih. causative of tzaqua.
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), 240.

Attestations from sources in Spanish: 

tinechcaquitiz ayac zan mopiquiz cana yazqui yntla momatiz no tzacuiltiloz = me notificarás si alguien miente que va [a] algún lado, si se sabe se le encarcelará (Tlaxcala, 1565)
Catálogo de documentos escritos en náhuatl, siglo XVI, vol. I (Tlaxcala: Gobierno del Estado de Tlaxcala y el Archivo Histórico del Estado de Tlaxcala, 2013), 35.

yn tlacamo mictlan quitzacuitiaz = sino sera castigado a el infierno (Tlatelolco, 1573)
Luis Reyes García, Eustaquio Celestino Solís, Armando Valencia Ríos, et al, Documentos nauas de la Ciudad de México del siglo XVI (México: Centro de Investigación y Estudios Superiores en Antropología Social y Archivo General de la Nación, 1996), 85.

onca quitzauhctiazque = ahí tendrán su castigo (ca. 1582, México)
Luis Reyes García, ¿Como te confundes? ¿Acaso no somos conquistados? Anales de Juan Bautista (Mexico: Centro de Investigaciones y Estudios Superiores en Antropología Social, Biblioteca Lorenzo Boturini Insigne y Nacional Basílica de Guadalupe, 2001), 138.