⚠ 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.

xotla.

Headword: 
xotla.
Principal English Translation: 

for the earth to burn; or, to ignite charcoal; or, for flowers to bud; to have a high fever (see Molina and Karttunen)

IPAspelling: 
ʃoːtɬɑ
Alonso de Molina: 

xotla. (pret. oxotlac.) abrasarse la tierra, o encenderse los carbones o brotar las flores.
Alonso de Molina, Vocabulario en lengua castellana y mexicana y mexicana y castellana, 1571, part 2, Nahuatl to Spanish, f. 161r. col. 2. Thanks to Joe Campbell for providing the transcription.

xotla. ni. (pret. onixotlac.) tener gran calentura.
Alonso de Molina, Vocabulario en lengua castellana y mexicana y mexicana y castellana, 1571, part 2, Nahuatl to Spanish, f. 161r. col. 2. Thanks to Joe Campbell for providing the transcription.

Frances Karttunen: 

XŌTLA pret: XŌTLAC to burn, to catch fire, to run a fever; for flowers to burst into bloom / abrasarse la tierra, o encenderse los carbones o brotar las flores (M), tener gran calentura (M) Nahuatl also associates blooming with giving off a glow or exploding in CUEPŌN(I).
Frances Karttunen, An Analytical Dictionary of Nahuatl (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1992), 331.

Attestations from sources in English: 

xotla (verb) = to blossom, to flower; to warm, to inflame; to cut, to scratch, to saw
Daniel Garrison Brinton, Ancient Nahuatl Poetry: Containing the Nahuatl Text of XXVII Ancient Mexican Poems (1877), 168.