chichihua. | Nahuatl Dictionary

Headword:

chichihua.

Principal English Translation:

to get outfitted, dress oneself, fix oneself up, etc. (verb)
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), 214.

to adorn someone or something (verb in the transitive form) (see Molina)

a woman who is breastfeeding a baby (noun)
Digital Florentine Codex/Códice Florentino Digital, edited by Kim N. Richter and Alicia Maria Houtrouw, "Book 10: The People", fol. 105r, Getty Research Institute, 2023. https://florentinecodex.getty.edu/en/book/10/folio/105r/images/0 Accessed 10 September 2025.

Orthographic Variants:

chichiua, chichiuah, chichihuah

IPAspelling:

tʃihtʃiːwɑ

Alonso de Molina:

chichiua. nino. (pret. oninochichiuh.) aderezarse componerse, o atauiarse.
Alonso de Molina, Vocabulario en lengua castellana y mexicana y mexicana y castellana, 1571, part 2, Nahuatl to Spanish, f. 20r. col. 1. Thanks to Joe Campbell for providing the transcription.

chichiua. nite. (pret. onitechichiuh.) aderezar destamanera a otro.
Alonso de Molina, Vocabulario en lengua castellana y mexicana y mexicana y castellana, 1571, part 2, Nahuatl to Spanish, f. 20r. col. 1. Thanks to Joe Campbell for providing the transcription.

chichiua. nitla. (pret. onitlachichiuh.) aderezar alguna cosa.
Alonso de Molina, Vocabulario en lengua castellana y mexicana y mexicana y castellana, 1571, part 2, Nahuatl to Spanish, f. 20r. col. 1. Thanks to Joe Campbell for providing the transcription.

chichiua. ama que cria.
Alonso de Molina, Vocabulario en lengua castellana y mexicana y mexicana y castellana, 1571, part 2, Nahuatl to Spanish, f. 20r. col. 1. Thanks to Joe Campbell for providing the transcription.

Frances Karttunen:

CHIHCHĪHU(A) vrefl,vt to adorn, dress oneself, to get ready; to adorn, dress someone, to adorn, embellish something / aderezarse, componerse, o ataviarse (M) aderezar de esta manera otro (M), aderezar alguna cosa (M). This contrasts with M’s chichiua ‘nursemaid,’ which is derived from CHĪCHĪ ‘to suckle.’ CHIHCHĪHUILIĀ applic. CHIHCHĪHU(A)
Frances Karttunen, An Analytical Dictionary of Nahuatl (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1992), 50, 51.

Lockhart’s Nahuatl as Written:

chihchīhua. nino. to get outditted, dress oneself, fix oneself up, etc. Class 2: ōninochihchīuh. distributive chīhua.
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), 214.

Attestations from sources in English:

In Book 6 of the Florentine Codex, 34th chapter, we see how the newborn male baby of a ruler was addressed by the community, but also how he was dressed and arrayed, showing that one's dress was very important and meaningful. (central Mexico, sixteenth century)
Fr. Bernardino de Sahagún, Florentine Codex: General History of the Things of New Spain; Book 6 -- Rhetoric and Moral Philosophy, No. 14, Part 7, eds. and transl. Arthur J. O. Anderson and Charles E. Dibble (Santa Fe and Salt Lake City: School of American Research and the University of Utah, 1961), chapter 34, 184.

Auh ca otichichioaloc: ca otitlamamacoc in iooaia, ca titlaҫovitz = And thou wert arrayed, thou wert laden in the beginning to come to be esteemed. (central Mexico, sixteenth century)
Fr. Bernardino de Sahagún, Florentine Codex: General History of the Things of New Spain; Book 6 -- Rhetoric and Moral Philosophy, No. 14, Part 7, eds. and transl. Arthur J. O. Anderson and Charles E. Dibble (Santa Fe and Salt Lake City: School of American Research and the University of Utah, 1961), 184.

Attestations from sources in Spanish:

nima portales mocalaqui mochi xochimatlatl motecpan yhua caxtilteca notlachichiuhque = luego entró a los portales. Se colocaron redes de flores, y los castellanos también adornaron. (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), 320–321.

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