miqui. | Nahuatl Dictionary

Headword:

miqui.

Principal English Translation:

to die (see Molina); he or she dies, it dies

IPAspelling:

miki

Alonso de Molina:

miqui. ni. (pret. onimic.) morir.
Alonso de Molina, Vocabulario en lengua castellana y mexicana y mexicana y castellana, 1571, part 2, Nahuatl to Spanish, f. 56v. col. 2. Thanks to Joe Campbell for providing the transcription.

Frances Karttunen:

MIQU(I) pret: MIC to die / morir (S) There are a number of verbs built on MIQU(I) which do not have the literal sense of ‘to die,’ but rather ‘to suffer,’ such as ĀPĪZMIQU(I) ‘to be hungry,’ CECMIQU(I) ‘to suffer from cold.’ Other verbs with MIQU(I) as second element are even further removed from the literal sense of ‘to die,’ TĒMIQU(I) ‘to dream.’ MIQUILIĀ applic. MIQU(I) MIQUILTIĀ altern. caus. MIQU(I) MIQUĪTIĀ altern. caus. MIQU(I) MIHMIQU(I) redup. MIQU(I)
Frances Karttunen, An Analytical Dictionary of Nahuatl (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1992), 148.

Horacio Carochi / English:

miqui = to die
Horacio Carochi, S.J., Grammar of the Mexican language with an explanation of its adverbs (1645), translated and edited with commentary by James Lockhart, UCLA Latin American Studies Volume 89 (Stanford: Stanford University Press, UCLA Latin American Center Publications, 2001), 254-55, 506.

Lockhart’s Nahuatl as Written:

Class 2: ōnimic. 225
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), 225.

Attestations from sources in English:

Maria mathal omic = María Maerta died. (Huexotzinco, 1619)
The Book of the Dead from Huexotzoinco (1619–1640), ed. Tara Malanga (2025), 44–345.

iaumic [or yaomic?] in chimalpupuca, in ipiltzin Motecuçoma= Chimalpopoca, son of Moteucçoma, died in battle. (Mexico City, sixteenth century)
James Lockhart, We People Here: Nahuatl Accounts of the Conquest of Mexico, Repertorium Columbianum v. 1 (Los Angeles: UCLA Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, 1993), 156.

huei cocoliztli in itech omotlali ca yeppa ic momiquiliz = A great illness has come upon him, of which he will soon die. (Mexico City, 1649)
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), 204.

ye momiquiliz = about to die
Robert Haskett and Stephanie Wood's notes from Nahuatl sessions with James Lockhart and subsequent research.

ninomiquiliznequi, nimomiquiliznequi = I am about to die (two variants for the same phrase; the nino- is Central Nahuatl, and the nimo- is more peripheral, but both are found, for example, in the Valley of Toluca.
Caterina Pizzigoni, ed., Testaments of Toluca (Stanford: Stanford University Press and UCLA Latin American Center Publications, 2007), 36.

Miquiz is attested as a person's name, a baby, gender not specified. (Cuernavaca region, ca. 1540s)
The Book of Tributes: Early Sixteenth-Century Nahuatl Censuses from Morelos, ed. and transl. S. L. Cline, (Los Angeles: UCLA Latin American Center Publications, 1993), 168–169.

catallinan piltzintli micqui yta miguel mocario pohui tlatenco = The child Catalina died. Her father was Miguel Mocario of Tlatenco, (fol. 1r) of El libro de los difuntos. [Note: Malanga admits that micqui is a noun that she is translating as a perterit verb. (SW)]
The Book of the Dead from Huexotzoinco (1619–1640), ed. Tara Malanga (2025), 8.

1689 calli xiuitl...omomiquilli beneficiado ocatca Topoyanco Don Antonio de Torres cuetlaxcoapa = 1689 House year...the former curate of Topoyanco, don Antonio de Torres, died in Puebla. (Anales de Puebla y Tlaxcala no. 1, part 3, 1519–1691)
Frances Krug, "The Nahuatl Annals of the Tlaxcala-Puebla Region," ch. 2, p. 30. Ph.D. Dissertation draft written in the 1980s, with transcriptions and translations approved by James Lockhart. Cited here by SW.

themes:

Death