⚠ 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.

cenciacatl.

Headword: 
cenciacatl.
Principal English Translation: 

arm, measurement from the armpit to the hand (see Molina)

Orthographic Variants: 
cẽciacatl, ceciyacatl
Alonso de Molina: 

cenciacatl. brazo, medida desdel sobaco ala mano.
Alonso de Molina, Vocabulario en lengua castellana y mexicana y mexicana y castellana, 1571, part 2, Nahuatl to Spanish, f. 17r. col. 1. Thanks to Joe Campbell for providing the transcription.

Attestations from sources in Spanish: 

"De esta manera puede concluirse, primero, que cenciácatl era la unidad para medir no sólo haces de leña o hierba, sino sólidos en cierta forma curvilíneos; y segundo, que equivalía a 0.70 m; o en todo caso a cuatro 'jemes' o 'palmos'".
Víctor M. Castillo F., "Unidades nahuas de medida," Estudios de Cultura Náhuatl 10 (1972), 217.