tzapa.

Headword: 
tzapa.
Principal English Translation: 

a dwarf (see Molina), also a personal name (Tzapa) found in the censuses of Culhuacan, c. 1580

IPAspelling: 
tsɑpɑ
Alonso de Molina: 

tzapa. enano.
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.

Attestations from sources in English: 

in tzapame, in tepotzome = the dwarfs and the hunchbacks (central Mexico, sixteenth century)
Fr. Bernardino de Sahagún, Florentine Codex: General History of the Things of New Spain; Book 3 -- The Origin of the Gods, Part IV, 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, 1978), 19.

auh in oniaque in iaoc, njman ie ic quitlaltoca in tovenio, yoan in ixqujchtin tzapame, in vilame = And when they had gone off to war, thereupon they planted [apart] the stranger and all the dwarfs and cripples (central Mexico, sixteenth century)
Fr. Bernardino de Sahagún, Florentine Codex: General History of the Things of New Spain; Book 3 -- The Origin of the Gods, Part IV, 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, 1978), 19.

This is an example of a suffixless noun (no -tl, -tli, or -in ending).
Michel Launey, An Introduction to Classical Nahuatl, translated and adapted by Christopher MacKay (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011), 232.

vncatca imaachoan, ixoloan in qujnujcatinenca in qujmehellelqujxtiaia, tzapame, villame, tepotzome, teachme = There were their servants, their pages who attended them and gave them solace; dwarfs, cripples, hunchbacks, servants. (central Mexico, sixteenth century)
Fr. Bernardino de Sahagún, Florentine Codex: General History of the Things of New Spain; Book 8 -- Kings and Lords, no. 14, Part IX, 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), 30.

Attestations from sources in Spanish: 

notzapaton = mi enanito; notzapatotonuan = mis enanitos
Rémi Siméon, Diccionario de la lengua náhuatl o mexicana (Mexico: Siglo XXI, 1988), xliii.

See also: