Principal English Translation:
an ad hoc term invented to describe a catapult; literally, wooden sling for throwing stones (16th c., central Mexico)
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), 231.
Lockhart’s Nahuatl as Written:
combining form quauhtemātla-. quahuitl, temātlatl. 231
Attestations from sources in English:
españoles quitlalique quauhtematlatl, inic quinpoiomictizquia in tlatilulca = the Spaniards installed a catapult with which they were going to kill the Tlatelolca by stealth
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), 230.
in iehoan Españoles, quitlalique in quauhtematlatl in mumuzticpac, inic quintepachosque in macevatlin = those Spaniards installed a catapult on top of an altar platform with which to hurl stones at the people (Tlatelolco, 1550–80)
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), 193.