⚠ 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.

yolchicahua.

Headword: 
yolchicahua.
Principal English Translation: 

to take courage (reflexive); or, to animate someone else to be brave (transitive) (see Molina and Karttunen)

Orthographic Variants: 
yolchicaua
IPAspelling: 
yoːltʃikɑːwɑ
Alonso de Molina: 

yolchicaua. nite. (pret. oniteyolchicauh.) animar aotro desta manera.
yolchicaua. nino. (pret. oninoyolchicauh.) animarse y esforzarse.
Alonso de Molina, Vocabulario en lengua castellana y mexicana y mexicana y castellana, 1571, part 2, Nahuatl to Spanish, f. 39v. col. 2. Thanks to Joe Campbell for providing the transcription.

Frances Karttunen: 

YŌLCHICĀHU(A) vrefl,vt to take courage, to incite oneself to bravery, to incite someone to bravery / animarse y esforzarse (M), animar a otro de esta manera (M) See YŌL-, CHICĀHU(A).
Frances Karttunen, An Analytical Dictionary of Nahuatl (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1992), 341.

Attestations from sources in English: 

"The words '-yol' and '-yollo,' literally 'heart' but often used for the mind, the emotions, and volition, figure in a large number of Nahuatl idioms. You will find a group of eleven of them in Molina under Noyol and Noyollo."
James Lockhart, Nahuatl as Written, 2001, 156.

See also: