atlacatl. | Nahuatl Dictionary

⚠ 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.

atlacatl.

Headword:

atlacatl.

Principal English Translation:

a sailor, a boater, or one who fishes from a boat; or, a bad person (see Molina and attestations)

Orthographic Variants:

ahtlaca-tl

IPAspelling:

ɑhtɬɑːkɑːtɬ

Alonso de Molina:

atlacatl. marinero, o mal hombre.
Alonso de Molina, Vocabulario en lengua castellana y mexicana y mexicana y castellana, 1571, part 2, Nahuatl to Spanish, f. 8r. col. 1. Thanks to Joe Campbell for providing the transcription.

Frances Karttunen:

ĀTLAHCA–TL. M combines the definition of this and of AHTLĀCA–TL 'inhuman person' in a single entry. They both contrast with C's ĀTLĀCA–TL 'person made of water'. R does not indicate the internal glottal stop.

Lockhart’s Nahuatl as Written:

natlacatl = I am a bad person, I am inhumane
This is an example of the way i gives way before any following vowel (in this case, a, the first letter of atlacatl). If it didn't give way, the word would be niatlacatl.
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), 2.

Attestations from sources in English:

The Matrícula de Huexotzinco includes a person named Felipe Amin who has an occupation listed as Tlatlama Atlacatl, which suggests that he fishes perhaps from a boat. Thus, this atlacatl would be more akin to the translation as "sailor." (See f. 576r.)
See the Visual Lexicon of Aztec Hieroglyphs.

a bad or inhuman person, monster. ah negative, plus tlacatl.
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), 211.

themes:

Behavior, Personality

Marine, Maritime, Lacustrine

Water