alguacil.

(a loanword from Spanish)

Headword: 
alguacil.
Principal English Translation: 

a constable, a sub-cabildo officer
The Tlaxcalan Actas: A Compendium of the Records of the Cabildo of Tlaxcala (1545-1627), eds. James Lockhart, Frances Berdan, and Arthur J.O. Anderson (Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 1986), 153.

Orthographic Variants: 
alguazil, alguaçil, alhuacil, alhuaçil, arguazil, alhuasil
Attestations from sources in English: 

tlacpac omoteneuhque tliltique, auh ynin omoteneuhque españa huicoque oncan tetlan yhcuac huicoc yn Anton de loya tliltic çãno ymalguacil catca yn tliltique libres tn tlacallaquia = these said blacks were taken to Spain. At that time Antón de Loya, a black, was also taken with the rest; he had been the constable of the free blacks who pay tribute. (central Mexico, 1612)
Annals of His Time: Don Domingo de San Antón Muñón Chimalpahin Quauhtlehuanitzin, James Lockhart, Susan Schroeder, and Doris Namala, eds. and transl. (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2006), 226–227.

Sanno ypa xihuitl yn oquitzatzaca y mochi yn yey altepetl alcaldes regidores alhuasil mayores pasados y muchin y huehuetque = In this same year they imprisoned all the past alcaldes, regidores and chief constables of the three altepetl, all the elders (entry for 1677)
Here in This Year: Seventeenth-Century Nahuatl Annals of the Tlaxcala-Puebla Valley, ed. and transl. Camilla Townsend, with an essay by James Lockhart (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2010), 114–115.

"yalguazilhuan" attested in a manuscript from 1547
Frances Karttunen and James Lockhart, Nahuatl in the Middle Years: Language Contact Phenomena in Texts of the Colonial Period, Linguistics 85 (Los Angeles, University of California Publications, 1976),
54.

alguacil mayor = chief constable, apparently always had cabildo membership
Caterina Pizzigoni, ed., Testaments of Toluca (Stanford: Stanford University Press and UCLA Latin American Center Publications, 2007), 248.

mīñ diaz español alguazil = Martín Díaz, Spaniard, constable;
atl tepetl yalguazilvan = the city's constables (Tlaxcala, 1547)
Beyond the Codices, eds. Arthur J.O. Anderson, Frances Berdan, and James Lockhart (Los Angeles: UCLA Latin American Center, 1976), Doc. 22.

min— tepantemoc alguazil .. algazil (Coyoacan, 1554)
Beyond the Codices, eds. Arthur J.O. Anderson, Frances Berdan, and James Lockhart (Los Angeles: UCLA Latin American Center, 1976), Doc. 9.

luis daniel alguazil .. min— tepantemuc alguazil (Coyoacan, 1554)
Beyond the Codices, eds. Arthur J.O. Anderson, Frances Berdan, and James Lockhart (Los Angeles: UCLA Latin American Center, 1976), Doc. 10.

juo bautista alguaçil (Xochimilco, 1572)
Frances Karttunen and James Lockhart, Nahuatl in the Middle Years: Language Contact Phenomena in Texts of the Colonial Period, Linguistics 85 (Los Angeles, University of California Publications, 1976), Doc. 2.

ponsension quimacatiuh yn alguacil mayor luis caravajal (Coyoacan, 1575)
Beyond the Codices, eds. Arthur J.O. Anderson, Frances Berdan, and James Lockhart (Los Angeles: UCLA Latin American Center, 1976), Doc. 13.

señor anton gomez Español vezino coyoacan yhuan yispantzinco señor don turibio fiscal vicente Ramirez balsar pz alguaziles yglesia margos feliciano Escriuo yglesia anton sanchez tepisqui apçolco Etc (Coyoacan, 1575)
Beyond the Codices, eds. Arthur J.O. Anderson, Frances Berdan, and James Lockhart (Los Angeles: UCLA Latin American Center, 1976), Doc. 20.

yispan Señor Don turibio siluestre fiscal yglesia yhuan vicente Ramirez balthasar pz alguaziles yglesia (Coyoacan, 1575)
Beyond the Codices, eds. Arthur J.O. Anderson, Frances Berdan, and James Lockhart (Los Angeles: UCLA Latin American Center, 1976), Doc. 21.

franco alhuacil mayor (Tehuacan, 1642)
Beyond the Codices, eds. Arthur J.O. Anderson, Frances Berdan, and James Lockhart (Los Angeles: UCLA Latin American Center, 1976), Doc. 24.Nehuatl don valeriano castañeda gouernador ỹ nican Atltepetl tlascallā notencopa

In a land dispute, the alguacil was the one sent to give formal posession to the one who won the suit. (Tlaxcala, 1585)
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), 289.

Nehuatl don valeriano castañeda gouernador ỹ nican Atltepetl tlascallā notencopa ni mitznauatiya ỹ tehuatl feliciano tiçamitl alguazil ypanpa ỹ nimiznomaquiliya topilli ya onpa titlapiyaz yn sant andres avazvatepec [avazvatepec ?] niman. saloztoc teyacac tepeyspan ocuyocan. “I don Valeria- no Castañeda, governor here in the altepetl of Tlaxcala, issue orders to you Feliciano Tizamitl, alguacil. For this reason I give you the staff of office because you will oversee things in San Andrés Ahuazhuatepec, and then in Xaloztoc, Teyacac, Tepeixpan, and Ocoyocan” (Olko, Sullivan, Szemiński eds. 2018: 574). [annals (AHT, AJB, GA, ZM), cultural encyclopedia (FC 3), legal statement (IRI), municipal council records (TA 178), petition (IMA, LJJ, M 2, M 4, M 7, M 8, TAC), will (TC 14, TC 15, TC 16, TC 17, TC 19, TC 21, TC 26, TC 43, TC 49, TC 50, TC 82, TT 48, WCF); time range: 1543–1735]
Loans in Colonial and Modern Nahuatl, eds. Agnieszka Brylak, Julia Madajczak, Justyna Olko, and John Sullivan, Trends in Linguistics Documentation 35 (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2020), 75.

Attestations from sources in Spanish: 

ynic onmetin arguazilez oyazque yn ompan San Martin Zacatlan = que dos alguaciles vayan allá a San Martín Zacatlan (Tlatelolco, 1572)
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), 83.

nima mochi quicahualtin yn itequiuh yn alhuaçilestin = y luego suspendió el cargo a todos los alguaciles (Tlaxcala, 1662–1692)
Juan Buenaventura Zapata y Mendoza, Historia cronológica de la Noble Ciudad de Tlaxcala, transcripción paleográfica, traducción, presentación y notas por Luis Reyes García y Andrea Martínez Baracs (Tlaxcala y México: Universidad Autónoma de Tlaxcala, Secretaría de Extensión Universitaria y Difusión Cultural, y Centro de Investigaciones y Estudios Superiores en Antropología Social, 1995), 272–3.

ce alguazil ytoca P[edr]o Tezca ça[n] no Atzaqualco chane auh yniquehi pilli ytoca don Joseph Ycnoxochitl ypiltzin catca don Di[eg]o Tehuetzquiti onxihuitl in topillecat = un alguacil llamo Pedro Tezca, asimismo habitante de Atzaqualco y el tercer principal [pilli] se llamaba don José Ycnoxochitl, era hijo de don Diego Tehuetzquiti que fungió como topile dos años (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), 144–145.

See also: